\K 



f'i<) 



111!!' i;hii*- 



1 ' 



!'f;l 11!,. ic/i •> 



!l 



/!ii 






Ili}!j;f!)!i;ii| ,'1 ■ 









'm , I,. ' . 









i' ii ivi i'l 



111 






''''!;':itMi 


















' 0. 9 ,v. 



¥ 



'-,. ^^^ ^\^\<r. 





^'' ^^ 



0* x^ \'^ 














'%^^' 






\ 












,0o. 



">. * •. N ^ ^ 






>^-'".%^-'^'V^ 













vO o. 









\ • 






3: 



c<^ 







o. "'' 



* 9 I \ 









^'. ,.^^^ "■*-' 



o.*- 



<^* 






STUDIES 



IN THE 



CEEATITE WEEK 



GEORGE D. BOARDMAN. 



w 



1} n(^ 



P^ 



" By Iliin were all things created that arc in heaven, and that arc in earth, 
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, 
or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him : and He is before all 
things, and by Him all things consist." — Colossians i. 16, 17. 



NEW 



YbRK: 



>7 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 

1880. 



7r 



^ 



^6> 



COPTEIGHT BT 

6E0EGE DANA BOAEDMAl^, 

1878. 



TO 

MY WIFE, 

WHOSE POETIC INSIGHT INTO THE MEANING OF NATUEE 

HAS BEEN MY INSriEATION, 

THESE STUDIES AEE LOVINGLY OFFERED. 



G. D. B. 



PEEFAOE 



At tlie veiy outset, tlie author is emphatic in his wish 
that it be distinctly understood that this little volume does 
not claim to be a scientific treatise, or even an attempt to 
" reconcile the Mosaic Record with the teachings of Mod- 
ern Science." His main object, as set forth at length in 
his Introductory Lecture, has been to unfold the Moral 
Meaning which, he believes, is Divinely infolded in the 
Creation Archive. This object he has kept steadfastly 
and supremely in view : and if, in prosecuting it, he may 
have dispelled some of the seeming incongruities between 
Science and Eevelation, it has been only incidentally, on 
his way to a diviner Goal. 

The writer will be pardoned for giving some account 
of the circumstances which led to the production of this 
volume. The Lectures were originally delivered as ser- 
mons on Sunday evenings, in the ordinary course of 
pulpit ministration. During the course of their de- 
livery, eminent citizens, representing various branches of 
the Church, and various professions, requested their repe- 
tition before the public at large. Accordingly, the Lect- 
ures, having been reconstructed, were delivered on four- \ 
teen consecutive Tuesday noons, beginning January 8, , 



6 PREFACE. 

1878, m one of the halls of Philadelphia. The writer 
has given this explanation in order to account for the 
oratorical freedom of the style, which, inexcusable in an 
elaborate monograph, may be pardoned in an oral lecture. 

And now the author, in sending forth this little work, 
which he does most diffidently, ventures to adopt as his 
own, non jpassibus cequis, " The Writer's Prayer," as framed 
by Francis Bacon : 

" Thoio, Father I Who gavest the Visible Light as the 
first-'born of Thy ereatxiTes^ and didst jpour into Man the 
Intellectual Light as the tojp and consummation of Thy 
worhmanshi^p^ be ]?leased to jprotect and govern this worlc, 
which, coming from Thy Goodness, returneth to Thy Glory. 
Thou, after Thou hadst reviewed the luorJcs which Thy 
hands had made, beheldest that everything was good : and 
Thou didst rest with comjplacency in them. But Man, 
reflecting on the worlcs which he had made, saw that all 
was vanity and vexation of spirit, and coidd by no means 
acquiesce in them. Wherefore, if we labor in Thy works 
with the sweat of our broius, Thou wilt malce us jpartdkers 
of Thy Vision and Thy Sabbath. We humbly beg that 
this mind may be steadfastly in us, and that Thou, by our 
hands and also by the hands of others on whom Thou 
shalt bestow the same sjiyirit, wilt please to convey a large- 
ness of new alms to Thy family of Mankind. These 
things we commend to Thy everlasting love, by our Jesus, 

Thy Christ :' God loith us. Amen.^^ 

G. D. B. 

Philadelphia, April 20, ISYS. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE PAGE 

I. — Introductory ....... 9 

II. — Genesis of the Um verse . . . , . 32 

III. — Genesis of Order . . . . . .47 

IV. — Genesis of Light . . . . . . 65 

V. — Genesis of the Sky . . . . . .83 

VI. — Genesis of the Lands . . . . . 100 

VII. — Genesis of the Plants . . . . .119 

VIII. — Genesis of the Luminaries . . . . 138 

IX. — Genesis of the Animals . . . . . loG 

X. — Genesis of Man . . . . . .170 

XI. — Genesis of Eden . . . . . .199 

XIL— Genesis of "Woman ...... 222 

XIII. — Genesis of the Sabbath . . . . . 215 

XIV.— Palingenesis ...... 273 

Appendix ....... 303 



STUDIES IN" THE CEEATIYE WEEK. 



LECTUEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY — REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 

Inaugurating, as we now do, a series of Studies in the 
Creative Week, it is proper, first of all, to sliow cause for 
sncli a procedure. 

Our first reason is tliis : tlie Anti- 
L-Antiqiiity of . , ^^ ^^^ Creation Eecord. Observe : 
the Creation Ar- \, •^ , -,t ^ .^ ,,^r . t-» 
^jjj-^,gg altliougli called the " Mosaic Record," 

I do not afiirra that Moses was the au- 
thor of it. There are strong reasons for believing that it 
is far older than the Lawgiver himself, having been be- 
queathed to him as one of the sacred, already hoary. 
Traditions of the Past. 

i._Origin of the -^^^ ^ci'<^ 1^* me turn aside for a mo- 
Prchistoric Tiadi- ment to speak of the possible origin of 
*^°^s- the wide-spread traditions touching the 

early history of the world. For it is an unquestioned fact, 
as remarkable as unquestioned, that, from time immemorial, 
and among many and widely-scattered nations — e. g., the 
Chaldeans, the Phoenicians, the Eg)^tians, the Persians, the 
Indians, the Chinese, the Karens, the Greeks, the Romans, 



10 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tlie Celts, the Scandinavians, the Finlanders, the Peruvians, 
the Aztecs, the Algonqnins, etc. — there were traditions of 
a Primitive Chaos, an Original Pair, a Paradisal Age, a 
Tree of Life, a Serpent, a Fall, an Expulsion, a Deluge, 
a Dispersion. Where did these traditions, so singular in 
themselves, and yet so common to so many and so widely- 
scattered peoples, have their origin ? No one but a vi- 
sionary would venture to affirm that they were the result 
of accident. Whence, then, did these remarkable tradi- 
tions rise? Let us take a single chronological datum, 
viz., the Dispersion of the ISTations, and see if it does not 
suggest the answer. Assuming that the ages given us in 
the fifth chapter of Genesis are the ages of individuals and 
not of dynasties, Methuselah was, according to the chro- 
nology of the Hebrew text, contemporary with Adam 
some two hundred and forty-three years, and also with 
Shem some ninety-eight years ; so that Adam could have 
told the story of Eden to Methuselah, and Methuselah to 
Shem. Again: according to the Scriptural account (Gen. 
X,, xi.) — and this account is strikingly confirmed by the re- 
searches of ethnologists — Shem and his two brothers were 
the progenitors of the three great Baces into which 
E'oah's family was divided at the time of the Confusion 
of Tongues in the Plain of Shinar, and the consequent 
Dispersion of the Nations ; and Shem himself survived 
the Dispersion some two hundred and eighty years. More- 
over, Shem w^as contemporary with Isaac, and Isaac with 
Judah, and Judah with Ezrom, and Ezrom with Moses. 
Recall now the exceeding value which must have been 
ascribed to tradition in that primeval age, when there was 
neither printing-press nor alphabet, and when the only 
knowledge of the past possible was that which was trans- 
mitted from sire to son by word of mouth. Remember, 



IXTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. H 

also, that in that age of extreme longevity such tradi- 
tions would probably be preserved in great purity, since 
the Patriarchs, though descended one from another, were 
nevei*theless contemj)oraries of each other for centuries, 
and so could and would correct any deviation from the 
original Tradition. Remember, also, ' the thrilling char- 
acter of these Traditions themselves. What tales more 
wondrous than those of a lost Paradise, with its innocent, 
blissful Pair ; its Tree of Life, and its Tree of Death ; its 
eloquent, baleful Serpent ; its Cherubim and Flaming 
Sword ? How often must Adam, during the nine hundred 
and thirty years of his life, have conversed with his chil- 
dren and his children's children, down to the seventh and 
eighth generations, about those memorable scenes of which 
he himself had been a witness and a sharer in Paradise ! 
And after he had died, how often must Shem, Ham, and 
Japheth — born a century before the Flood, and also con- 
temporary with the great-great-great-grandfather of Moses 
— have conversed with Methuselah, who himseK had been 
contemporary with Adam ! 'No w^onder, then, that when 
the three sons of E"oah, with their families, went forth 
from the Tower of Babel to be scattered over all the face 
of the earth, and to become the founders of all subsequent 
nationalities, they carried with them, and transmitted to 
their descendants, traditions of the Creation and Fall : 
traditions which, though in the first instance full and ear- 
nest, became, in process of time, dim and debased with 
legends of heathen poetry and mythology ; their similari- 
ties on the one hand, and their divergences on the other, 
alike testifying to the common origin of Man in Edeii, and 
to the dispersion of Man at Babel. Thus heathenism itself 
brings tribute to Pevelation. All history, sacred and secu- 
lar, starts in and from Eden. 



12 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

2.-Mo3aic Incor- ^ut I was spealdiig of the autlior- 
poration of the Crca- sliip of the first two chapters of Gene- 
tion Traditions. g^g^ or the Creation Eecord. For anght 

I know, it was to Adam himself, while yet in Eden, fresh 
from the hands of his Creator, that God unrolled the pan- 
orama of His Creation. And Adam conld have talked 
with Methuselah, and Methuselah with Shem, and Shem 
with Isaac, and Isaac with the great-grandfather of Moses. 
As Matthew and Luke incorporated the genealogies of 
Jesus the Christ, probably taken from the official regis- 
tries, into their memoirs of Him, and thereby made them 
a part of their own story, so there is immense reason for 
believing Moses incorporated into the five books which 
bear his name the primeval tradition of Creation, and 
thereby made it his own document : thus literally giving 
us a magnificent specimen of Mosaic work. As such, the 
Creation Archives far outrank in venerableness the famous 
papyrus rolls of Egypt, the Yedic. hymns of India, the 
Zend-avesta of Persia ; being, beyond all comparison, the 
most ancient specimen of human literature. 

This, then, is our first reason for studying the story of 
the Creative Week : it is the most venerable relic of hu- 
man time. 

But there is a second and stronger 

, o . . +M f(-a . I'eason : it is the Majesty of the Subject 
u jec . a ei. -^^^^^^^^ 

. . ^^ To go back to the origin or source 

of things, tracing the first steps of what- 
ever has issued in greatness, whether material, intellectual, 
social, -or moral, this is one of the instinctive impulses of 
our nature, especially of all noblest minds. How fascinat- 
ing to the thoughtful man the problems of the origin of 
universal^ abiding customs ; of vast and permanent institu- 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. ]3 

tioiis ; of great national movements, whether migratory 
in sj)ace, or revolutionary in morals ; of political constitu- 
tions ; of languages ; of philosophies, secular and religious ; 
of force, of life, of matter ! 

Felix qui potuit rerum cognosccre causas. — (Geoegica, Liber ii. 490.) 

And the first two chapters of Genesis carry us back to 
the origin of things. " In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth " (Gen. i. i). Well may the first book 
of the Bible be called the Book of Genesis ; that is to say, 
the book of generations, births, beginnings, origins. Thus 
tlie first and second chapters give us the genesis of the 
universe ; the third and fourth chapters the genesis of sin ; 
the tenth and eleventh chapters the genesis of the nations 
— to this day an authority among ethnologists ; the twelfth 
chapter the genesis of the Abrahamic people. It is, in- 
deed, the Book of Origins. But we are to confine our- 
selves to the Genesis of the Universe, as set forth in its 
first two chapters. And a magnificent theme it is. How 
grandly grow before us, tier on tier, the outlines of Na- 
ture's Cathedral : its colossal foundations of solid matter 
emerging from the abyss of infinite space ; its gathering 
medley of gigantic blocks quarried from chaos ; its group- 
ing materials and rising derricks ; its scintillations at the 
strokes of celestial chisels ; its " most excellent canopy " of 
the " brave o'erhanging firmament ; " its massive buttresses 
of the lands, and towering arches of the mountains ; its 
foliated capitals and pendants and mouldings and panels 
of vegetation ; its " majestical roof fretted with golden 
fire ; " its gargoyles of griffins, and sentinels of cherubim ; 
its choir of humankind ; its bell-toll of Time's first Sab- 
bath ! No wonder that when its conier-stone was laid, 
the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 



\ 



14 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

shouted for joy (Job xxxviii. 6, V) ; or that when its headstone 
was brought forth, it was with shoutings of Grace — grace 

unto it (Zech. iv. 7). 

This, then, is our second reason for studying the story 
of the Creative Week — the Majesty of the Theme. 

... ^, . .^ . Sut there is a third reason for this 

III.— Chief Point ^ , . „ .... 

of Modern Assault, ^tudy : a reason especially pertinent to 

these times, because born of them ; this 

story of the Creative Week is in many respects the chief 

point of Modern Assault. 

And the assault comes in the main 

1. — Science and j. ,^ . ..^ t -, t. • 

P ^ j^^j irom the scientmc world. it is a 

proper point, then, to arrest our steps 
for a few moments, and glance at the relations of ^N^ature 
and Scripture, or rather of Science and Revelation. Of 
course, I can discuss the matter in only a cursory w^ay, out- 
lining, rather than unfolding. 

And, first : ^Nature, not less than 
{«.)-Nature and Scripture, is God's Word. In both He 

Scripture alike God's 

]3j^i^ reveals ilimseli, speaking to man as 

in a Bible of two j)arts or volumes. 
" There are two books," said Sir Thomas Brown, " from 
which I collect my divinity ; besides that written one of 
God, another of His servant Nature — that universal and 
public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes of all." 
I know that there is a sort of secret feeling that to call 
]!^ature a Bible savors of irreverence. But let us take care 
lest our religiosity here be in fact a sort of infidelity under 
guise of sanctity. Let us beware of Polytheism, worship- 
ing two Gods, the God of ^Nature aiid the God of Scrip- 
ture : the latter being the better God. 'No ; Deity speaks 
to us alike in His Words and in His Works, in Scripture 
and in E'ature. 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 15 
Secondly : coming thus equally from 

(J.)-Naturc and pj-g ^^^^^^^ ^-^^ ^^^.^ j^jl^l^g (.g^^not COn- 

ciip ure u ua y ^j.^^]^^^ g^^j^ otlier. Finite man, capable 

Complemcntal. ^ ; -"-^ 

of mistakes and subject to vacillations, 
may be and is inconsistent. But Infinite God is not a man 
that He should lie, nor the Son of man that He should re- 
pent (Num. xxiii. 19). He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. ii. 13). 
If, then, there be inconsistency between His Words and 
His Works, the presumption is that the inconsistency is 
only apparent, and springs from our failure to interj^ret 
the two Bibles truly. 

Thirdly: this leads to the remark 

(c.)-Ourlnterprc. xj^^. ^^i^^i^ ^^^^^ J3iygg ^^,^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 
tations Liable to Er- , „ , . , , ^ . ^ , 

j^.^^ thereiore true, our interpretation oi the 

Bibles is human, and therefore liable to 
error. There is such a thing as the unintentional misin- 
terpretation of Scripture, and there is such a thing as the 
unintentional misintei'i^retation of Nature. As a matter 
of fact, the history of the interpretations of these two 
Bibles, Nature and Scripture, is more or less a history of 
modifications and recantations. And so it must ever be, 
so long as man is finite and fallible. 

Fourthly : nevertheless, as time ad- 
(^.)-Our Under- ^.^^^^^es, our understanding of the two 

standing of the Two -r,., , ^.^ , in., 

Bibles rrogrcssivc. ^^^^G^, JSTature and Scripture, grows 
larger and clearer. 

Take the case of Nature. How is 
( .)— luc a- ^^ ^1^^^ ^^^ have in our libraries such 

tare : 

noble volumes as Whewell's " History 
of the Inductive Sciences," and WhewelPs "History of 
Scientific Ideas ? " Simply because our knowledge of 
Nature is a growth — advancing from the little to the more, 
from the obscure to the clearer, from the less tnie to the 



16 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

more true. And tliis remark tliat the knowledge of ]^a- 
ture is progressive is eminently true of that science which, 
it is alleged, conflicts most directly with the Mosaic narra- 
tive, the science of Geology. As Geology is among the 
youngest of the Physical Sciences, so it is among the most 
shifting. True, some of its exponents are wont to talk of 
its certainties, using such strong terms as " incontroverti- 
ble," " proof positive," " absolute demonstration," and the 
like. But it is not the great masters who talk thus — only 
the sciolists. For the true scientific spirit, like the true 
theological, is ever cautious and modest. Plow far Geology 
is from being a matured or settled science is evident, e. g., 
from the debates between eminent geologists touching the 
antiquity of the earth. However strongly the stratified 
rocks may seem to testify to the extreme antiquity of the 
globe, geological phenomena occurring in our days, and 
before our OAvn eyes, such, e. g., as upheavals and subsid- 
ences of lands^ emergence and disappearance of islands, 
recession and procession of shores, depositions by equa- 
torial currents, rapid and extensive chemical crystalliza- 
tions, and the like, as strongly suggest the comparatively 
recent origin of the earth. Observe, it is not on Scriptural 
or moral grounds that I object to these geological theories. 
The question here is simply a question of fact. H}q)otli- 
eses, however brilliant, are not demonstrations. Geology 
is a very noble science, but she is still in her teens. 

And as the knowledge of Nature is 

(2)-ABdTracof progressive, SO is the knowledge of Scrip- 
ture. Ihat this is possible and reason- 
able, is evident from such considerations as the following : 

a. Recovery of lost manuscripts. 

1). Discovery of archseological facts. 

G. Better understanding of the principles of philology. 



INTRODUCrORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 17 

a. Better metliods of interpretation. 

e. Lights reflected from newly-discovered facts in Na- 
ture. 

f. Lights reflected from the growing experience of tlie 
ages. 

Tlie simple circumstance that there is an ever-growing 
demand for a revision of the received version of the Scrip- 
tures, is a striking testimony to the fact that our knowl- 
edge of Scripture is advancing. How profound in this 
connection the words of Bishop Butler ! — 

" As it is owned, the whole scheme of Nature is not yet 
understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood before the 
Restitution of all things (Acts iii. 21), and without miracu- 
lous interpositions, it must be in the same way as natural 
knowledge is come at — by the continuance and progress of 
learning and of liberty, and by particular persons attending 
to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up and 
down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the gen- 
erality of the world. For this is the Avay in which all im- 
provements are made : by thoughtful men tracing on obscure 
hints, as it were, dropped us by Nature accidentally, or which 
seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor is it at all in- 
credible that a book, which has been so long in the possession 
of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. 
For all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of in- 
vestigation, from which such great discoveries in natural 
knowledge have been made in the present and last age, were 
equally in the possession of mankind several thousand years 
before. And possibly it might be intended that events, as 
they come to pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of 
several parts of Scripture." — ("Analogy of Religion," 
Part ii., chapter 3.) 



18 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

, , ^. , r. . Fiftlily : what, then, is the infer- 

(e.)— Time the Great / ' i /. 

Expositor. 6^c® t^ ^^ drawn irom the loregomg 

remarks ? Simply this : Since it is true 
that l^ature and Scripture are alike the Word of God ; 
that the two Bibles cannot contradict each other ; that the 
interpretation of both of them is alike human and hable to 
error ; and that our understanding of them is progressive : 
then it follows that, in any case of apparent conflict be- 
tween a Scriptural statement and an alleged scientific fact, 
it is our duty to be cautious in our judgments, reserved in 
our statements, and patiently await the tuition of future 
discoveries. Had the Church thus waited, she never would 
have pronounced Galileo a heretic. Had the Academy 
thus waited, she never would have pronounced Moses a 
blunderer. It is pleasant to believe that not one of the 
thus far demonstrated facts of science is hostile to the Mo- 
saic story fairly interpreted. Lives there the man who 
knows — demonstrably knows — that Moses has told an un- 
truth ? Remember that candor neither affirms nor denies 
till she knows. Let the Church and the Academy listen 
to each other respectfully, and treat each other fairly. Let 
Science help Scripture, and let Scripture help Science. Li 
all cases of apparent conflict between them, the true phi- 
losophy and the true bravery, alike for theologian and 
for scientist, is to await the tuition of events. Time is the 
great expositor. Let the Church, then, in whose behalf it 
is my vocation specially to speak, calmly abide her time. 
The grass withereth ; the flower fadetli ; but the "Word of 
the Lord endureth forever (i Peter i. 24, 25). And among the 
many tributes which science shall yet lay at the feet of Im- 
manuel and Immanuel's bride, not the least costly will be 
that brought by fair Geology herself. Yea, the very stones 
of the field will be in league with Messiah's Church (Job v. 23). 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 19 

So miicli for the mutual relations of Science and Revo* 
lation. 

2.— The Language Bnt there is another point which 

of the Creation Rec- in this connection demands attention. 

ord Phenomenal. jj^^ f ^j. {^ this storj of the Creative 
Week to be interpreted science-wise ? In other words, is 
this Creation Eecord, in all its details, to be taken liter- 
ally ? Eemember, then, that the Bible does not profess to 
be a scientific treatise ; it does not profess to be written 
for a scientific purpose ; it does not profess to describe the 
facts of Mature philosophically — that is to say, with scien- 
tific accuracy. Professing to reveal spiritual truths, i. e., 
truths which could not have been learned without super- 
natural disclosure, it leaves the discovery of the facts of 
I^ ature — a discovery which can be wrought out by man's 
own powers — to the natural laws of human unfolding. 
And when it does speak of the facts of Nature, it speaks 
phenomenally — that is to say, it describes things of this 
sort, not as they absolutely are, but as they seem to be ; 
not philosophically, but optically ; not scientifically, but 
scenically. God knows that I would not willingly offend 
the least of His little ones. God knows that I believe that 
His Scripture is inspired, and that I bow before it as rev- 
erently as ever did the devoutest believer. And yet, let 
me frankly say it, I do not believe that the Creation Eec- 
ord is to be taken literally. If I take one part of it as lit- 
eral, then I must be consistent, and take the whole as lit- 
eral : e. g., I must believe that the seven days were literal 
days of twenty-four hours each ; that God spake in an ar- 
ticulate, audible voice, though there was not an ear to 
hear ; that there was a first day with morning and even- 
ing, though there was no sun to rise and set, and so intro- 
duce mom, and bequeath eve ; that it was the soil itself 



20 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

that brouglit f ortli vegetation and birds and beasts ; that 
God literally spoke to the animals, saying, "Be fniitful 
and multiply, and fill the earth ; " that He actually had 
lungs, and breathed into the nostrils of the first man ; that 
He actually performed a surgical operation in Eden, and 
metamorphosed one of Adam's ribs into a woman ; that 
He actually rested on the seventh day because He was real- 
ly tired out with His creative toils. For myself, most rev- 
erently I say it, the God I kneel before is greater than this. 
Observe : the question before us is not a question of pow- 
er ; of course, God could have done all this ; nothing is 
too hard for Him, except to do wrong ; but the question is 
a question of fact ; did He literally do all this ? Remem- 
ber that, in this matter of Creation — ^this record of making 
real, ponderable entities out of space or nothing — ^we are 
moving in the region of the transcendent, the unspeakable, 
the absolutely inconceivable. Creation — mark the word — 
transcends all experience, transcends even conception itself. 
Hence the words describing Creation must, in the very 
nature of the case, be figurative, or parabolic. And par- 
able is the very highest form of truth. A geometrical ax- 
iom is not so true as a l^azarene parable. The one is teth- 
ered by material limits ; the otlier is as limitless as God's 
immensity. Accordingly, I believe, with some of the. 
devout est scientists of the Church, that the record of the 
Creative Week is the record of a Divinely inspired vi- 
sion, wherein the beholder was Divinely vouchsafed a 
glimpse of the creative process, as though unfolded in a 
series of unrolling sections of a Divine panorama. And I 
believe this, not merely because the facts of creation are 
inherently transcendental and incommunicable, but also 
because revelation by vision was God's favorite method of 
instruction in the primitive ages. Listen to Elihu, son of 



IXTIiODUCrORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 21 

Baracliel and friend of Job, sp3aking wlien humanity "was 
yet young : " In dreams, in visions of the night, when deep 
sleep falleth on man, in shmibers on his bed ; then doth 
God open the ear of men and seal up their instruction " 
(Job xxxiii. 15, 16). Thus did He instruct Abraham, Jacob, 
Joseph, Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joseph of [N'aza- 
reth, the Wise Men from the East, Peter, Paul, and, in a 
very eminent degree, John of Patmos. What is the Book 
of the Pevelation but a series of majestic visions ? And as 
that Book is a panoramic Apocal}^:)se of the future, so I 
firmly believe is the Creation Pecord a panoramic Apoca- 
lypse of the past. Accordingly, its language is not scientific, 
but phenomenal or pictorial. Even scientists themselves, 
who very properly demand strict accuracy of expression 
when discoursing on scientific matters, nevertheless often 
allow themselves, and very properly, to use ]3henomenal 
language, as when they speak, e. g., of sunrise and sunset. 
Why should not the writer of this venerable Archive, living 
in that far-off, childlike antiquity, be allowed the same lib- 
erty ? And, indeed, we may bless God that the language 
of Scripture on such matters is optical. For, had the Bi- 
ble been written in the scientific style, it would have been 
a scaled book except to the initiated. Moreover, it would 
have been misunderstood and assailed by these very ini- 
tiates, even far more than it actually has been ; for Science, 
like every other thing of life, is a process, constantly out- 
growing and sloughing off its own opinions and putting 
forth new. An interesting book has been written, entitled 
" Variations of Popery." Possibly another book, equally 
interesting, might be written, entitled " Yariations of 
Science." But phenomenal language never becomes obso- 
lete. To the end of time, savant, not less than savage, will 
speak of sunrise and sunset. No, the Bible docs not pro- 



22 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

fess to be a scientific book. It professes to describe sucli 
matters as we have in band optically — ^i. e., as tbey look. 
IS^evertbeless, it does profess even liere to tell the trutb. 
As a matter of fact, tbe sun did not rise tbis morning ; 
it is tbe rotation of tbe globe on its axis tbat gave us 
wbat seemed to be a sanrise. Do you tben cbarge your 
almanac-maker witb ignorance or falsehood because be bas 
told you tbat tbe sun would rise tbis morning at twenty- 
two minutes past seven o'clock, or tbat be wdll set to-nigbt 
at fifty-two minutes past four ? E^evertbeless, altbougb 
tbeoretically false, tbese phenomenal statements touching 
the heavenly bodies are practically true, and so true that 
on the basis of them your navigator, in mid-ocean, will 
accurately calculate bis longitude and latitude, and your 
astronomical clock at Washington will give the exact time 
of day to a continent. Precisely so with the Mosaic nar- 
rative of the Creation, Scientifically false it may be ; op- 
tically, and in the moral sense, profoundly true I firmly 
believe it is. Most unfair, then, and even absurd it would 
be to discuss it scientifically. And yet I feel perfectly 
sure that it is just as true as the statements of your alma- 
nac-maker. So much for tbe purpose of the Creation Rec- 
ord and tbe mode of its revelation to the original N'arrator. 
And now to return to the main 
t.''.*~t"^ ^^ ""^^^ ^ point at present in hand: tbe assaults 

Living Issue. ^ -Ti r • oi r- • 

on tbe Mosaic Story ; for it is assaulted, 
let it be confessed, very formidably. And I am here to 
defend it ; and this because I believe it to be true in the 
sense in which the author meant it. And, in defending 
it, I shall, of course, speak from tbe platform of a Chris- 
tian believer. At the same time I shall speak from the 
platform of one who has a profound homage for the scien- 
tific method, freely taking, whenever th3 occasion de- 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 23 

mands, mj weapons from the arsenal of science itself. 
And in tlms repelling from tlie platform of tlie scientist 
the assaults of nnbelievers, I am sm-e I am sanctioned by 
Apostolic authority. True, you hear from the Apostles 
no such words as gravitation, electricity, spectrum analy- 
sis. And no wonder ; the physical sciences were not then 
born. J^evertheless there were then, as there are now, as- 
saults against Christianity. These assaults, however, came 
not from scientists, but from Jewish ritualists and legal- 
ists; from Gentile polytheists and idolators. And the 
Apostles, wherever they went, met the foe, not at some 
ancient, abandoned point, but at the point of contempora- 
neous assault. Since then wonderful advances have been 
made. Since then the telescope and the microscope have 
been invented. Since then Christianity has been sum- 
moned to grapple with new foes — foes more formidable 
than any that were wont to broaden their phylacteries in 
Herod's temple, or kiss toward the shade of Plato in the 
olive-grove of Athens's academy. And now supj)ose that 
Paul, rallied from Caesar's axe, and living again to-day, 
were set here in Philadelphia for the defense of the Gos- 
pel, even as he had been in those Poman days of yore. 
How think you would he speak ? "Would he not take 
up the modern gauntlet, going forth to meet the new 
foes, as he was wont to go forth to meet the old foes, 
grappling with them on their own ground ? Would ho 
not close in with the modern false interpreter of God's 
first Bible, as he was wont to close in with the ancient 
legalist of Pome, the ancient skeptic of Corinth, the an- 
cient ritualist of Galatia, the ancient mystic of Colosse ? 
Old foes they are ; but they wear new masks. Be it 
ours, then, to strip off the new masks, and so disclose the 
old foes. 



24 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

And yet here at this very point let 

4.-^Spirit of these /? n xi x xi i x 

^, ^. ^ me say, once lor all, that, thronsrhont 

Studies. -^ ' . ' ; . ^ 

these studies, I shall ne^er intentionally 
indulge in philippic. Of course, I shall exercise man's 
common prerogative— the right of personal opinion. But 
I shall never, if God shall be so good as to help me, stoop 
to denunciation. For there is no eloquence so easy, so 
transient, so sterile, and, if you will allow me, so vulgar, 
as the eloquence of invective. Of course, we ought to 
fight every lie. But the best way of fighting it is not 
with the insect buzz and sting of diatribe : the all-con- 
quering way is to let in on it the calm, noiseless sunbeam 
of Truth. 

This, then, is our third reason for studying the Story 
of the Creative Week : it is the chief point of modern 
scientific assault. 

But there is a fourth and still strong- 
IV.— Moral Mean- er reason for engaging in this study : 
ing of the Story, it is the Moral Meaning of the Story 
itself. 
1. _ Nature and ^^r I firmly believe that a profound, 
Scripture correspon- Divinely - Ordained correspondence ex- 
^^^^- ists between things spiritual and things 

natural. Observe the order of my words : Between things 
spiritual and things natural, putting things spiritual first. 
And this is a vital point. For we are wont to think that 
it is by a species of happy accident that certain resem- 
blances exist between the kingdom of matter and the 
kingdom of spirit. Thus v/e are wont to cite certain 
metaphors of Holy Scripture as instances of God's conde- 
scension, representing Him as adjusting Himself to our 
weakness by setting forth spiritual truth in metaphors — 
that is, in language " borrowed," as we say, from human 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 25 

relations and material plienomena. It is well worth pon- 
dering, however, whether God, instead of thus borrowing 
from Nature, and so employing an after-thought, did not 
create JSTature for this very purpose, among others— name- 
ly, of illustrating His spiritual kingdom, ISTature being in 
a profound sense its counterpart, answering to it as though 
in way of shadow and impress. E. g., we are told that 
the Church is Christ's Body (i Cor. xii. 12-2'/). Of course, it 
is easy to trace many analogies between the natural organ- 
ism of the head and its body, and the spiritual organism 
of Christ and His Church. But whence came these an- 
alogies ? Are they accidental ? Did Jesus Christ adjust 
HimseK and His Church to a scheme of ^NTature already 
existing? Or did He, foreknowing all things from the 
beginning, and foreseeing the peculiarly vital relation He 
w^ould sustain to His own chosen people, so construct the 
scheme of ISTature as that the human organism of head 
and body should set forth the mystical union of Saviour 
and Saved ? Again : Jesus Christ is said to be the Bride- 
groom, and the Church His Bride (Eph. v. 25-33). Is this 
language borrowed from the marriage institution ? 'No. 
The marriage institution was founded for this very pur- 
pose — among others, namely, to set forth the unutterably 
tender relation between Jesus Christ and those who are 
His. For, as Eve proceeded from out of Adam, so does 
the Church proceed from out of the Second Adain (Gen. ii. 
21-24), members of His body, being of His flesh and of 
His bones (Eph. v. 30). Again : Jesus Christ is called the 
Last Adam (i Cor. xv. 45). Why is this name given to Him ? 
As an after-thought, suggested by the First Adam ? No. 
But because the First Adam, in the very beginning, was 
instituted to be to the race natural what the Second Adam 
is to the race spiritual, or the family of the redeemed ; and, 
2 



26 STUDIES m THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

therefore, lie is expressly called a fignre or type of Him 
Who was to come (Rom. v. 14). And when the theological 
mind of Christendom, instead of seeking to explain, as has 
been its wont, the Second Adam by the First, shall soar 
higher, and seek to explain the First Adam by the Sec- 
ond : in other words, Adam's relation to his race by 
Christ's relation to His redeemed : then will the doctrine 
of the Church, or Christ's mystical Body, come into clearer 
light, and be seen resting on a solider foundation. Again : 
Jesns Christ calls Himself the true Bread from heaven 
(John vi. 32-58). We see at once the appropriateness of the 
saying, " As the body is nourished by food, so is the spirit 
nourished by Christ." But how happens it that this say- 
ing is so true ? Is the analogy merely accidental ? Or 
did He Who in the beginning, before the world was, when 
forecasting His creative and redemptive acts, so devise the 
scheme of ^Nature as that the sustenance of the body by 
food should symbolize the sustenance of the Spirit by 
Christ ? But perhaps you say that man would have been 
just as dependent on food for maintenance as he now is, 
even had there been no Bedeemer and no Bread of Life. 
The objection is more specious than solid. For it is evi- 
dent that the Almighty Creator, had He so chosen, could 
have devised and constructed a different scheme of N'ature, 
according to w^hich man could have been maintained with- 
out food. But the fact is, that He has not so devised and 
constructed Nature. On the other hand. He has so con- 
structed man in his relations to Nature as that his daily 
bodily life shall be a constant reminder, and prophecy, and 
symbol, of his daily spiritual life ; so that not less for his 
spirit than for his body he can each morning pray, " Give 
us this day our daily bread." Again: the Kingdom of 
God is represented as a growth ; first the seed, then the 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 27 

blade, then tlie ear, then the full corn in the ear (Mark iv. 
26-29). It is the law of the spiritual life. And of this spirit- 
ual growth the vegetable growths around us are a magnifi- 
cent symbol. The plant-world is, in many particulars, a 
perfect picture of the spiritual. But whence this har- 
mony ? Whence this correspondence on a scale so colossal ? 
Is it accidental ? Let no believer in God dare say it. And^ 
if intentional, did the Creator arrange His spiritual king- 
dom with reference to His natural, or did He construct the 
realm of ^N'ature with reference to His spiritual realm, ad- 
justing the former to the latter ? Take one more example : 
the blessed truth of God's Fatherhood : " When ye pray, 
say, Father " (Luke xi. 2). Conceive, and the conception is 
certainly possible, that the parental relation were altogeth- 
er unknown, and that each human being took his station 
on earth, as Adam did in Eden — an immediate creation 
of God. It is to be doubted whether under such cir- 
cumstances we could have understood at all the blessed 
import of the Scriptural doctrine of God's Fatherhood. 
In fact, the heavenly love becomes a real thing to us only 
in our exercise and sense of an earthly. The human fa- 
ther's love is to man a helping image of the Heavenly Fa- 
ther's. And this, as I verily believe, was one of the primary 
ends to be secured by the original establishment of the 
Parental Kelation. God, in calling Himself our Father, 
does not borrow the epithet from earth. But in the very 
beginning He founded the earthly parental relation that it 
might suggest, prove, and explain the heavenly. Hence 
the resistless force of the Saviour's argument when, ap- 
pealing to the very foundations of man's nature. He ex- 
claims : " Which of you that is a father, if his son shall 
ask for bread, will give him a stone ? Or if he ask for a 
fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent ? Or if he shall 



28 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

ask for an egg, will lie give a scoi^ion ? If ye then, being 
evil, know liow to give good gifts to yonr children, how 
much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to those who ask Him? " (Luke xi. ii-is). In fact, it is this 
Divinely-ordained correspondence between things spirit- 
ual and things natural which lies at the basis of Christ's 
method as Teacher ; for He was in the eminent, superemi- 
nent sense the Parable Speaker, evermore saying : The 
kingdom of heaven is like this or like that. " All these 
words spake Jesus to the multitude in parables ; and with- 
out a parable spake He not to them : that it might be ful- 
filled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, I 
will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden 
from the foundation of the world " (Psalm Ixxviii. 2 ; Matt, 
xiii. 34, 35). In fact, erase from the records of Christ's say- 
ings all He has said in form of parable, and figure, and 
metaphor, leaving only what He taught in direct state- 
ments, and how comparatively meagre the residue ! Ah, 
it is the invisible world which is the fact ; it is the visible 
w^orld which is the metaphor ! And this fact it is which 
makes Holy Scripture so inexhaustible in its meanings 
alike in respect to depth and to variety.^ Truths, like the 
seventy whom the Lord of the Kingdom sent forth, are 
ever apt to go in pairs (Luke x. i). " All things," said an- 
other Jesus, son of Sirach, " are double, the one against 
the other " (Ecclus. xlii. 24). This saying is the basal idea of 
Bishop Butler's profound treatise, " The Analogy of Re- 
ligion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and 
Course of l^ature," a book which, notwithstanding its ob- 
solescent style, should be in every thoughtful man's li- 
brary ; for it will teach him how to observe, infer, and 
adore. Fine, too, is the saying in Longfellow's "Hj^e- 

1 " Habet Scriptura sacra haustus primos, habet secundos, habet teitios."— ArGT;STiNE. 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 29 

iglits were twice born, the tliouglit itself, 
and the figurative semblance in the outer world. Thus, 
through the quiet, still waters of his soul, each image float- 
ed double." 

"The swan on still St. Mary's lake 
Floats double, swan and shadow." 

Thus there are two Bibles, both issuing from the same 
Divine Author : the one, the Bible of the Unwritten Word, 
or the Lex non Scrijpta — the other, the Bible of the Writ- 
ten Word, or the Lex Scri^ta : or, rather, the one Bible is 
in two volumes, the volume of Nature and the volume of 
ScrijDture ; and the first volume is the second volume illus- 
trated. For, though the Written Word in the order of 
pui-pose precedes the Unwritten, yet in the order of time 
the Unwritten Word precedes the Written. That was not 
first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after- 
ward that which is spiritual (i Cor. xv. 46). ]^or can I con- 
ceive of any higher aim which the Christian scientist can 
place before himself than so to master the phenomena 
and laws of ]!^ature as to make them serve as interpreters 
of the secrets of the kingdom of God. Of course, our 
studies in this direction, as in the memorable case of the 
AUegorists of ancient Alexandria, and in the still more 
memorable case of Emmanuel Swedenborg, may be pushed 
to an extreme, so that fancy usurps the ofiice of reason, 
and our explanations become puerile. Yet an error of 
this kind is more reverential, and supplies the soul with 
more solid food, than the opposite freezing en'or of deny- 
ing to Scripture the exegetical ministry of Nature. 

" Two worlds are ours ; 'tis only sin 
Forbids us to descry 
The mystic heaven and earth within, 
Plain as the sea and sky. 



30 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

" Thou, Who hast given me ejes to see 
And love this sight so fair, 
Give me a heart to find out Thee, 
And read Thee everywhere." 

—("The Cheistian Yeae.") 

2.— Scope of this You see, then, tlie scope of this se- 
^^^^^^' ries. "While it will be my purpose to 

use so much of science as may help us grasp what the 
Sacred "Writer meant, this will be only incidentally, on 
our way to a nobler goal. Believing that I^ature, not less 
than Scripture, is God's own Word ; believing also that 
Nature herself is charged with latent spiritual meaning; 
it will be my main purpose to endeavor, with God's bless- 
ing, to unfold some of these latent meanings. The pur- 
pose is large and high. But, if God's grace is given us, 
it may be that as we swiftly career across the adamantine 
ledge of the Creation Archive, the scudding hoofs of 
observation will elicit some sparkles of hidden, holy sug- 
gestion, some scintillations of quickened, heavenward 
aspiration. 

These then are some of the reasons 

for engaging in the study of the Crea- 
tive Week: first, the Antiquity of the Story; secondly, 
the Majesty of the Story; thirdly, the Assault on the 
Story; and, fourthly, the Moral Meaning of the Story. I 
have, I submit, shown just cause for our assembling. 

May it not be in vain then that ever 

and anon we turn aside to worship in 
the Cathedral of Nature ! For here too is a burning bush, 
wherein the Angel of the Lord speaks to us. Be it ours 
to put off our shoes from off our feet : for the place where- 
on we stand is holy ground (Ex. iii. 1-5). Be it ours to have 
the same lowly reverence which has so beautifully marked 



INTRODUCTORY— REASONS FOR THESE STUDIES. 31 

sucli illustrious Scientists as a Galen, who regarded liis 
professional life as "a religious hjann in honor of the 
Creator ; " a Copernicus, on whose tombstone, in St. John's 
of Frauenburg, is the following epitaph : " 'Not the grace 
bestowed on Paul do I ask, not the favor shown to Peter 
do I crave ; but that which Thou didst grant the robber 
on the cross do I implore ; " ^ a Kepler, who concludes 
his treatise entitled " Harmony of the Worlds " thus : " I 
thank Thee, my Creator and Lord, tha,t Thou hast given 
me this joy in Thy creation, this delight in the works of 
Thy hands ; I have sho^vn the excellency of Thy works 
unto men, so far as my finite mind w^as able to compre- 
hend Thine infinity: if I have said aught unworthy of 
Thee, or aught in which I may have sought my own glory, 
graciously forgive it ; " a Newton, who never mentioned 
the name of Deity without uncovering his head ; a Fara- 
day, who amid his profound researches never forgot his 
little obscure Sandemanian chapel ; a Dana, who concludes 
his " Observations on Geological History " wdth the august 
w^ords, 

"Deus Fecit." 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it was in the begimiing, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end. Amen. 

1 Non parem Pauli graliam rcquiro, 
Veniam Petri neqiie posco, sod quam 
In crucis ligno dederas latroni, 
Sedulus oro. 



LECTUEE II. 

GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 

Genesis i. 1. 

What is tlie Origin of the Uni- 

L A Fiindamen- n -ttti ^i p rv 

^ T ^ ,. verse « Whence came those far-oii 
tal Question. 

23lanets and stars « Whence came this 
earth, these mountains, and oceans, and rocks, and mole- 
cules, and atoms 1 "What is the Origin of Things ? It is, 
perhaps, the sublimest question mortal man can ask. Ac- 
cording as it is answered, you have unspeakable conse- 
quences : either a God, and the possibility of a blissful im- 
mortality, or no God at all, and the annihilation of Keligion 
itself. Do not imagine, then, that this question of the 
Origin of the Universe is only a secular or scientific ques- 
tion. It is a profoundly religious question, going down to 
the very roots of Truth, and Science, and Theology, and 
Character, and Worship. Moreover : it is a question which 
thoughtful men are everywhere asking, and this, too, with 
an unprecedented intensity. It is the stupendous problem 
before the thinking world of to-day. Neither imagine that 
it is being asked only in yonder scientific cloisters ; it is 
being asked in your marts, and by your very firesides. 
And the dreadful answer, which you, O Christian, are 
fondly dreaming is confined to a few philosophers and 
avowed atheists, is, as a matter of fact, being openly in- 



GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 33 

stalled ill many of your scientific institutions, and is subtly 
gliding into your universities and academies, your clubs 
and worksliops, ay, your very cliurches themselves. Re- 
membering, then, the sublime gravity of the problem, the 
tremendous moral consequences it involves, the profound 
stir it is making among the thoughtful of the community, 
I cannot but think that the discussion of the problem from 
this platform is particularly opportune. May the Sj^irit of 
all Truth then especially aid us as we ponder the following 
theme : The Genesis of the Universe. 

At the very outset, then, let us con- 
II. The Precise . • i xi 1 1 t. i? 

ceive precisely the problem beiore us. 

Clearness of conception at this point is 
of utmost consequence. For, strange to say, there is here 
much dimness of idea, and vagueness of talk, even among 
the educated and scientific. Let me, then, carefully illus- 
trate the precise nature of the problem before us. Sup- 
pose I had before me here a bar of iron, weighing one 
pound. Out of this pound of iron I can make a variety of 
things : e. g., watch springs, needles, nails, scissors, razors, 
tuning-forks, and so on. But note very particularly that 
in order to make these various articles I must have the 
pound of iron, as material, to start with. This pound of 
iron I cannot make. The question then is this: Where 
did the iron ore itself come from ? Who made that ? How 
shall I account for this pound of matter that is in this iron 
bar ? Take a more complex case. Suppose I had here a 
gallon of water weighing eight pounds. I can alter the 
condition and character of this water in various ways. I 
can solidify it into ice. I can evaporate it into steam. I 
can mix it with other substances, and form a new com- 
pound. I can even decompose it into its constituent ele- 
ments, having as my result, in measures of weight, eight 



34 STUDIES IN TH2 CREATIVE AVEEK. 

parts of oxygen and one part of hydrogen ; and then I can 
again recombine them, having as my result this same gal- 
lon or eight pounds of water. Observe here, too, very par- 
ticularly, just what it is I do. All I do, or can do, is to 
change the condition and character of the water, putting it 
to new and various uses. I did not, and cannot, make the 
oxygen and hydrogen which compose the water. Where 
did these elements come from ? How shall I account for 
these eight pounds of oxygen and hydrogen ? Take a case 
still more complex. Suppose I had before me a block of 
wood weighing one pound. Out of it I might make a 
great variety of figures : e. g., a cube, a globe, a square, a 
prism, a hexagon, and so on. But observe here, too, very 
particularly, just what it is I do. All I make is the figures. 
I did not, and I cannot, make the wood or matter out of 
which I construct the figures. Where, then, did this wood, 
this matter itself, come from ? Suppose you tell me that 
the wood is composed of a certain amount of carbon, oxy- 
gen, and hydrogen, arranged in a certain definite propor- 
tion. Still you do not answer my question. Where did 
these elements themselves come from ? If I cannot make 
the wood, much less can I make the elements which com- 
pose the wood. What is the origin of this pound of carbon 
and oxygen and hydrogen? You see, then, the precise 
nature of the problem before us; it is not touching the 
shaping of matter already existing ; it is touching the origi- 
nation of matter itself. 

And now let us try to form some 

^ ^, *~ "^^^^^^ y i(Jea of the Immensity of the problem : 
of the Problem. . i i x x x j; 

m other words, let us try to lorm some 

idea of the extent of the universe : that is to say, the 

amount of matter actually existing. And, in doing this, 

let us not use measures of superficial extent, trying to con- 



GENESIS "OF THE UNIVERSE. 35 

ceive tlie vastness of the earth, or the number, distances, 
and magnitudes of the stars. Let us take weight, rather 
than bulk, as our standard of measurement. For the quan- 
tity of matter in a given body — say, in an ingot of gold — 
is not measured by the space it occupies when beaten out, 
but by the weight it has when put in the scales. Taking 
weight, then, rather than bulk, as the measure of the 
amount of matter in the universe, let us approach the 
aggregate, so to speak, by degrees. 

Take, e. g., air, as the representative 
eig o e ni- ^£ niatter in its caseous or lightest state. 

verse. , . *^ o 

"Light as air" is a common simile. 
Yet light as air is, its quantity is so vast that it presses 
earth's surface with the weight of fifteen pounds to every 
square inch. Think, then, of the weight — that is to say, 
quantity of atmospheric material — resting on a globe 25,000 
miles in circumference. 

Again : take water as the representative of matter in its 
liquid state. A cubic inch of water weighs 773 times as 
much as a cubic inch of air — i. e., contains 773 times as 
much matter. The Mississippi alone annually discharges 
on the average into the GuK of Mexico 19,500,000,000,000 
cubic feet of water, equal to 145.6 cubic miles. Think, 
now, of the quantity of matter stored up in earth's rivers, 
lakes, vapors, clouds, rains, snows, glaciers, dews, subter- 
ranean reservoirs, oceans miles in depth and thousands of 
miles in breadth. 

Again : take iron as the representative of matter in its 
solid state. Think of all the iron that is made use of and 
wrought into this world's fabrics and implements; its 
countless structures, and engines, and railways, and wheels, 
and utensils, and machinery of every kind, to say nothing 
of earth's numerous and colossal ore-beds. 



36 STUDIES m THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Again : tliink of the amount of oxygen, and hydrogen, 
and silicon, and alnminium, and magnesinm, and calcium, 
and potassium, and sodium, and carbon, which are com- 
pressed in this earth's crust ; in its fauna, and flora, and 
sand, and gravel, and clay, and marl, and coal, and boul- 
ders, and quarries, and mountains. 

Yet this mighty globe of ours, having a circumference 
of 25,000 miles, is but a speck in the universe of matter. 
Think of our sun-system with its hundreds of planets, sat- 
ellites, rings, aerolites, etc. Think of the Sun itself, with 
its diameter of 880,000 miles and circumference of 2,760- 
000 miles, outweighing 355,000 earths. 

Think of the 25,000,000 other sun-systems belonging 
to our own Cluster alone, some of which suns are immense- 
ly vaster than even our own sun. 

Think then of the w^eight — that is to say, the amount 
of matter — represented by these 25,000,000 suns, to say 
nothing of the hundreds and thousands of planets, moons, 
comets, aerolites, etc., with which each one of these 25, 
000,000 suns is probably escorted. 

But these 25,000,000 sun-systems belong only to our 
own Cluster. The telescope has disclosed to us about 
6,000 such nebulae, and is constantly disclosing more. In- 
stead of speaking of millions of sun-systems, we may per- 
haps speak of billions. 

And so, for aught we know, billions on billions, quin- 
tillions on quintillions, decillions on decillions. Indeed, 
there is great reason for believing that the material universe 
has no limits. To imagine this is to imagine the finite 
exercise in finite space of God's infinite power, and so the 
possibility of finite man's grasping the range of God's in- 
finite capacity. In other words : to imagine this is to 
imagine that finite man can touch the limits of the out- 



GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 37 

working of God's inlinitc capacity, and so grasp the range 

of His creation. In all events, the universe, practically 

speaking, is infinite. 

And now looms up before ns our 

.'~^^^ ^^ ' overwhelmin<? Problem. Whence did 
lem itself. i . . • i i e 

tins inconceivable amount oi matter 

come ? What is the Origin of this tremendous weight of 
Universe ? Again I ask you to observe carefully what the 
precise problem is. The question is not concerning the 
arrangement of matter already existing: the question is 
concerning the origination of matter itself. Here are sixty 
or seventy elements which, so far as we know at present, 
make up the existing universe. And the point to be ex- 
actly observed is this : not one solitary atom of these ele- 
ments which make up the universe can man make. All 
that man can do is to operate on these elements, com- 
pounding them in various proportions, using the com- 
pounds in various ways, shaping them, building with 
them, and so on. In short, man must have something on 
which, as well as with which, to operate. With noth- 
ing he can do nothing. Here, then, is our startling prob- 
lem. This mighty universe of ours, weighing a number 
of tons simply inconceivable, is nothing but the sum total 
of these atoms, not one of which man can create, so far as 
experience goes ; and experience is the grand philosophi- 
cal test. What an appalling aggregate of material, then 
— of oxygen, and hydrogen, and nitrogen, and carbon, and 
silicon, and all the other elements — making the weight of 
the universe, have we to account for ! At the cost of 
repetition, but at the gain of clearness and emphasis, I 
ask you again to try to form some idea of the weight of 
the universe — that is to say, the amount of matter in it. 
Imagine that these millions of sun-systems, with their myr- 



38 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

iads of satellites, instead of being separated from each other 
countless millions of miles as they now are, were consoli- 
dated into one mass. How unspeakable, how pm-ely in- 
conceivable, the weight — i. e., the quantity — of matter ! In 
that stupendous, inconceivable mass this earth of ours, with 
its diameter of 8,000 miles, would be but as a point in an 
area of millions of square leagues. Think now of the 
amount of matter which is represented in a single ton. 
Even that thought oppresses you. Yet so light a substance 
as our own terrestrial atmosphere presses earth's surface 
with a weight of more than 26,000,000 tons on each square 
mile. Think now of the 197,000,000 square miles of sur- 
face presented by this earth-sphere of 25,000 miles circum- 
ference. In addition to this inconceivable amount, think 
of the earth's structures of wood, and brick, and stone, and 
iron ; the tonnage of earth's forests, earth's animals, earth's 
oceans, earth's sands, earth's coal and ore beds, earth's con- 
tinental mountain-ranges of solid rock. To say nothing 
of the tonnage of the hundreds of satellites of our own 
sun-system, think of the tonnage, that is to say, quantity, 
of material which forms the sun, outweighing 355,000 
earths. Think of the tonnage of 25,000,000 other suns, 
many of which are hundreds of times larger than our own, 
to say nothing of the countless satellites with which each 
of these suns is escorted. Think of the tonnage of 6,000 
nebulae, each perhaps with its score of millions of sun-sys- 
tems. To speak probably within bounds, the tonnage, 
that is to say, amount, of matter composing this earth of 
ours, compared with that of the rest of the stupendous 
mass, would be as a thistle-down balanced against a million 
of suns. Here, then, is the mighty question : " How ac- 
count for this tremendous Fact ? Whence came this in- 
conceivable amount of material ? " 



GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 39 

It is a fair question to ask. 'No 
The Question Le- ^ .^ ^^ ^j^.^^^^ ^^ .^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ 

gitimate. ' . mi t i 

matter, can help asking it. Ine idea 
that every effect must have a cause is an intuitive, univer- 
sal, irresistible, necessary Idea. Hence the axiom, jEb 
nihilo nihil fit — " From nothing, nothing comes." A 
causeless effect is simply unthinkable. Keeping in mind, 
then, this fundamental, irresistible axiom — "Every effect 
must have a cause " — let us apply it to the topic in hand. 
Here is a stupendously measureless effect : what caused it ? 
Not one man, not all mankind together, with the most per- 
fect machinery conceivable, can make one solitary atom of 
matter. Where, then, did all this measureless, unutter- 
able, inconceivable quantity of matter composing this ma- 
terial universe come from ? Suppose you say it came from 
a few cells or germs, or perhaps one. That does not an- 
swer the question. The axiom, " Every effect must have 
a cause," implies another axiom : " Effects are proportional 
to their causes " — that is to say, causes are measured by 
their effects. If the whole material universe came from a 
few germs 2indifrom nothing else, then the weight of these 
genns must be equal to the weight of the universe. You 
cannot get out of a thing more than is in it. It is a maxim 
of philosophy: "Evolution implies previous involution." 
And the axiom that every effect must have an adequate 
cause demands that the involution be equal to the evolu- 
tion. You cannot evolve what was not involved. Of 
course, I do not deny that the growth of the acorn into the 
oak is in a certain sense an evolution. In fact, it is the 
evolution which is the secret of the identity of acorn and 
oak. But, then, there is much more here than evolution, 
or simple unfolding of the primal germ : there is also the 
accretion of external material around the gcnn and along 



40 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE YfSEK. 

tlie axis of growth — tliis added material coming from soil, 
water, air, etc. It is the accretion which is the secret of 
the incretion. The problem, then, is to account not only 
for the weight of the acorn, but also for the weight of the 
oak — the vastly larger part of the tree never having been 
in the seed. The famous Washington Elm, of Cambridge, 
we are told, yields on an average, say, Y,000,000 leaves, 
exposing a surface of 200,000 square feet ; and the problem 
is this : How account for the weight of the seed plus the 
weight of the root, trunk, and five acres of foliage ? How 
account for this enormous mass of universe matter, ex- 
pressed in terms of positive weight, on the theory of a few 
microscopic germs ? Observe, the question is not concern- 
ing the condition or arrangement of the universe ; the 
question is concerning its origination. Where did these 
supposed germs themselves come from ? In short, how 
account for the weight of the universe ? I rej)eat, it is a 
fair question to ask. The fundamental, universally-ac- 
knowledged, intuitively - perceived, necessary axiom, 
" Every effect must have a cause," proclaims it to be a fair 
question. Whence, then, came this universe of matter — 
visible, tangible, ponderable matter ? What is the Origin 
of this material Universe ? 

Only two answers are possible. 
The Answer of Logic. The first is this : Matter never had 
any origin at all ; it has always existed. 
Such was the opinion of the ancient sages. Inexorably 
pressed by the axiom. Every effect must have a cause, they 
toiled to follow up the line of effects and causes, tracing a 
given effect up to its cause, and again this cause as the 
effect of a preceding cause, and still again this preceding 
cause as the effect of a cause still preceding, and so on as 
far as they could go. Unable to find any First, Original 



GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 41 

Cause — in other words, unable to find the place and time 
in which matter began to exist — they were driven by our 
inexorable axiom to the theory of the eternity of matter. 
It is the one and only conclusion at which the logician, 
trusting solely to the logical processes and denying mira- 
cles, can possibly amve. 

The other answer is the first verse 
Scripture. ^^ ^^^ Book of God : " In the begin- 

ning God created the heavens and the 
earth." ^ In the beginning, before aught existed, save God 
Himself, Elohim created, made out of nothing, made with- 
out material, the heavens and the earth. Ah, here comes 
out the infinite difference between man and God : Man is 
only a builder, constructing with materials ; God is a Cre- 
ator, constructing without materials. God creates atoms ; 
man fashions molecules. 

Thus this word " create " is the di- 
ran cur Oi. t e yinest word in lano^uaffc, human or ano^el- 

Answer. . t • i » & ' o 

ic. It IS the august separatrix between 
the creature and the Creator, between the finite and the In- 
finite. It is the connecting link between the pre-creative 
universe of nothing and the post-creative universe of 
everything. The pre-creative eternity is separated from 
human time by the diameter of the universe. Well, then, 
may our text stand forth as the opening sentence of God's 
communication to man. For all theology is wrapped up 
in this one simple, majestic word — Created. It gives us an 
Unbeginning, Almighty, Personal, Self-conscious, Yolun- 

' True, it is not positively certain that the verb bara is to be taken in the strict, techni- 
cal sense of absolute orijjination. It is possible that it means here, as generally elsewhere, 
simply a process of forming:, arranging, shaping what was already existing. And for this 
Belf conscious, omniscient Omnipotence was needed hardly less than for an absolute origi- 
nation. In all events, the doctrine of Creation seems decisively taught in Hebrews xi. 8 : 
" By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the "Word of God, so that thingi 
toliich are eeen u-ere not made of things v;hich do appear,'*'^ 



42 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tary God. Before tlie mountains were bronglit forth, or 
ever Tliou liadst formed the earth and the world, even 
from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God (Psalm xc. 2). 
And in giving us an TJnbeginning, Almighty, Personal, 
Self-conscious, Yoluntarj God, it gives us the basis for 
Eeligion, the corner-stone for Worship. Thou, Thou art 
Lord alone, Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heav- 
ens, with all their host, the earth and all that is upon it, 
the seas and all that is in them ; and Thou preservest 
them all. And the host of heaven worshippeth Thee 
(Neh. iv. 6). Yes, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth." 

ITot that I understand the Creative 

Creation a Problem k.tj'. . !,•!.•' i 

Act ; I admit that it is incomprehen- 
sible. I even admit that it directly 
conflicts with the fundamental axiom: Out of nothing 
nothing comes. In other w^ords, I admit that it was a 
miracle. And being a miracle, of course I cannot under- 
stand it. Nevertheless I believe it. Ah ! this word — 
believe — ^is the key. Through faith we understand that 
the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that 
things w^hich are seen were not made of things which ap- 
peared (Heb. xi. 3). Prof . Tyndall, in his lecture on " Mat- 
ter and Force " to the workingmen of Dundee, spoke as 
f oUov/s : 

" While I make the largest demand for freedom of inves- 
tigation — while I as a man of Science feel a natural pride in 
scientific achievement — while I regard Science as the most 
powerful instrument of intellectual culture, as well as the 
most powerful ministrant to the material wants of men — if 
you ask me whether Science has solved, or is likely in our 
day to solve, the problem of this Universe, I must shake my 
head in doubt. You remember the first Napoleon's question, 



GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 43 

when the savants who accompanied him to Egypt discussed 
in his presence the origin of the Universe, and solved it to 
their own apparent satisfaction. He looked aloft to the 
starry heavens, and said, * It is all very well, gentlemen ; but 
who made all these ? ' That question still remains unan- 
swered, and Science makes no attempt to answer it. As far 
as I can see, there is no quality in the human intellect which 
is fit to be applied to the solution of the problem. It en- 
tirely transcends us. The mind of man may be compared to 
a musical instrument with a certain range of notes, beyond 
which in both directions we have an infinitude of silence. 
The phenomena of Matter and Force lie within our intellec- 
tual range, and as far as they reach we will at all hazards 
push our inquiries. But behind, and above, and around all, 
the real mystery of this Universe lies unsolved, and, as far 
as we are concerned, is incapable of solution." 

Sad words these. And the Professor is right so far as 
he goes. But why does he not go further ? Why does he 
not use the prerogative of exercising a loftier faculty than 
reason ? One of the most felicitous instances of masterly 
diction in the realm of Science is a discourse by this same 
Prof. T}Tidall, delivered before the British Association in 
1870, entitled " The Scientific Use of the Imagination." 
In this, as often elsewhere, he earnestly bids us to exercise 
the power of " visualizing the invisible." That is to say, 
he bids us exercise faith in the unseen : e. g., we are to 
believe in atoms though we have never seen one. Gentle- 
men of the Academy, allow me also the Scientific Use of 
the Imagination — that is to say, allow me the prerogative 
of faith : for Christian faith is the truest instance of the 
Scientific Use of the Imagination. "Where Peason is 
blind, Faith can see. Faith is the lens through which we 
perceive that the worlds w^ere created by the Word of God. 



44 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

All, Faith it is which sees an otherwise Invisible, Personal, 
Almighty, Infinite, Free God — Himself His own law — 
ever and anon striding forth on a plane above what we 
call Nature, as when in the primeval realm of absolute 
Space He caused to come into existence the heavens and 
the earth. Believe in that first of all miracles, the miracle 
of Creation ; and you can believe in the miracles of Incar- 
nation, Resurrection, Ascension, Parousia. This word — 
Faith — then is the motto inscribed on the very threshold 
of the Temple of Truth. The very first question in phi- 
losophy is this : What is the origin of things ? The very 
first statement of the Bible is an answer to this question ; 
an answer simple, unequivocal, exhaustive, majestic. Thus 
the very first summons of the God of J^ature to the stu- 
dent of His Works is a summons to an act of Faith. And 
to him who honestly obeys that summons. Creation shall 
prove to be in very deed an Apocalypse of Deity ; and so 
of Duty.^ 

Such is the story of the Genesis of the Universe. Two 
thoughts in conclusion. 

1 How wise the words of Francis Bacon : " It is an assured truth and a conclusion ot 
experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of 
man to atheism, but a further proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to relig- 
ion : for in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the 
senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, it may induce 
some oblivion of the highest cause : but when a man passeth on further, and seeth the 
dependence of causes and the works of Providence, then, according to the allegory of 
the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of Nature's chain must needs be tied 
to the foot of Jupiter's chair."— (" Advancement of Learning," Book I.) 

How poetic the words of Augustine : " I asked the earth, and it answered, ' I am not 
He ; ' and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the 
deep, and the creeping things that lived, and they replied : ' We are not thy God ; seek 
higher than -we.' I asked the breezy air, and the universal air with its inhabitants an- 
swered: 'Anaxamines was deceived. I am not God.' I asked the heavens, the sun, 
moon, and stars: 'Neither,* say they, 'are we the God Whom thou seekest.' And I 
answered unto all these things which stood about the door of my flesh : ' Ye have told me 
something concerning my God, that ye arc not He: tell me something about Him.' And 
with a loud voice they exclaimed : ' He made us.'— (' Confessions," Book X., Chapter 
VIII., Paragraph 9.) 



GENESIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 45 

And, first : Why did God create the 

Final Cause of Crc- ^ . , . o t , ^ , 

„,. material universe « Let us not be wise 

ation. 

above what is wTitten. And yet I can- 
not help thinking that there is a reason for the Creation in 
the very constitution of our spiritual nature. "VYe need 
the excitation of sensible objects. We need a material 
arena for self -discipline. As a matter of fact, we receive 
our moral training for eternity in the School of Matter. 
It is the material w^orld around us, coming into contact 
with our moral personalities through the senses of touch- 
ing and seeing and hearing and tasting, which tests our 
moral character. And so it comes to pass that the way in 
which we are impressed bj every object we consciously 
see or touch probes us, and will testify for us or against us 
on the Great Day. But while this is one of the proximate 
causes of the Creation, the Final Cause is the Glory of 
God. It is the majestic mirror from which we see His in- 
visible things, even His eternal power and Godhead (Rom. i. 
20). May it be for us evermore to join with the Living 
Creatures and the Elders of the Apocalypse in falling 
down before Ilim Who sitteth on the throne, and liveth 
for ever and ever, and in chanting : " Thou art worthy, O 
Lord God, to receive the glory and the honor and the 
might ; for Thou didst create all things, and for Thy 
pleasure they are, and were created" (Rev. iv. 9-1 1). 

Finally : this doctrine of the Crca- 
A rersonal Exhor- ^^^^ -^ ^ doctrine Well Suited to fill us 

tation. .11 . p 1 •^• 

with deepest sentiments 01 Jiumihty, 
reverence, and adoration. A God strong enough to create 
is a God strong enough to annihilate. Presume not then 
to persist in any state of rebellion, in any act of disobedi- 
ence. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trem- 
bling (Psaiai ii. 11). Enter into and abide in the spirit of 



46 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Claudius Galenus, the illustrious physician of ancient Per- 
gamos, who was wont to speak of his vocation and work as 
" a religious hymn in honor of the Creator." Let Him 
Who spake, and it was — Who commanded, and it stood fast 
(Psalm xxxii. 9) — be the Object of your supreme and ceaseless 
allegiance, homage, and trust. For the Lord is a great 
God, and a great King above all Gods. In His hand are 
the deep places of the earth ; the strength of the hills is 
His also. The sea is His, and He made it : and His hands 
formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow 
down : let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He 
is our God : and v/e are the people of His pasture, and the 
sheep of His hand (Psalm xcv. 3-Y). For from Him, and 
through Him, and to Him, are all things (Rom. xi. 36). 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE III. 

GENESIS OF ORDER. 

" And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was 
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters." — Genesis i. 2. 

I.— Explanation First of all, let us attend to the £x- 
of the Passage. plaiiation of tlie Passage. 

And, first, tlie Primeval Clitxos : 
1.— The Piimeval " JSTow tlie earth was waste and empty, 
^^^os. aj^(i darkness was over the face of the 

abyss." 

At the very outset, an interesting 
question arises. Was this Chaos the 
original condition of matter as it came direct from the 
Creator's hand, or was it the wreck of an earlier world ? 
It must be confessed that certain things seem to indicate — 
at least, at first sight — that the latter was the fact. First : 
God is not the author of confusion, but of peace (i Cor. xiv. 
33) ; whatever He creates is perfect. Again : the words 
tohu and hohu, rendered " without form and void," liter- 
ally mean wasteness and desolation. The expression is 
often applied to ruined cities and territories. Two i:)as- 
sages are remarkably in point. Isaiah, speaking of the 
coming judgment on Idumea, says : " The cormorant and 



a. — Oriaia of Chaos. 



48 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tlie bittern shall possess it, tlie owl also and the raven 
shall dwell in it, and He will stretch out upon it the line 
of confusion and the stones of emptiness" (is. xxxiv. ii) ; the 
words rendered " confusion and emptiness " are precisely 
the same as those rendered in our passage " without form 
and void." According to the prophet, Idumea was to be 
devoted to devastation and destruction. So also Jeremiah, 
foretelling the ruin that would come upon Judea, ex- 
claims : "I looked upon the land, and, lo, it was with- 
out form and void ; I looked to the heavens, and they 
gave their light no more ; I looked to the mountains, and, 
lo, they trembled ; I looked, and, lo, there was no man, 
and all the birds of the air had fled ; I looked, and, lo, the 
fruitful land had been turned into the desert, and all its 
cities were broken down before the fury of Jehovah's an- 
ger " (Jer. iv. 23-23). It Seemed to the prophet a real re- 
turn to the ancient realm of Chaos. Again : this opinion 
was held by some of the ancient Fathers, e. g., the Greg- 
orys, Basil, Augustine, etc. Again : it seems to be con- 
firmed by alleged scientific facts, particularly the geologic 
doctrine of Catastrophes, many of which are supposed by 
some scientists to have occurred in the immense interval 
between Creation and Chaos, and during Chaos itself. 
Once more : it seems to be confirmed by present terrestrial 
changes, e. g., recomposition out of decomposition, as the 
harvest out of the dying seed. Such are some of the rea- 
sons which have inclined some scientists, e. g., Buckland, 
Sedgwick, Hitchcock, etc., and many theologians, e. g., 
Chalmers, McCaul, Wordsworth, etc., to the opinion that 
Chaos was the wreck of an earlier world. 

^Nevertheless, although this opinion seems plausible, 
and although it is maintained by scholars entitled to our 
respect, it lies open to grave objections. First : it does not 



GENESIS OF ORDER. 49 

seem to be in liarmony with the scope of the Sacred ISTar- 
rator ; he is giving ns the history of the Creation of the 
heavens and the earth, not of their reconstruction. Again : 
it introduces an unvs^arrantable or at least apparently arbi- 
trary break between the first and second verses — that is to 
say — between Creation and Chaos. Again : instead of 
being sustained by the geologic records, it seems to be in 
direct conflict with them. Once more : it is opposed to 
God's usual method of working ; that method is inchoa- 
tive, that is to say, a method of progress, from small to 
vast, from embryo to fruition, from homogeneousness to 
heterogeneousness, or rather from homogeneousness to di- 
versity, and through diversity to unity in diversity. For 
these reasons I am compelled to believe that the Chaos of 
the original elements not less than the Creation of them 
was the direct issue of the Creative Will ; that is to say, 
God created the atoms of the Universe, starting with 
them in a chaotic state. It was an instance of the truth 
to which I shall advert later on : All progress begins in 
Chaos. 

And now glance for a moment at 

h. — Picture of Cliaos. , -, . . i /^i 

this primeval Chaos. 
All the elements which now exist were doubtless 
there ; but all were out of relation. Far as the eye could 
pierce, not a thing of life or beauty or definite form re- 
deemed a single point in the monstrous waste. And 
over this wild, stmctureless, desolate abyss rested the pall 
of blackness. In short, earth was that heterogeneous 
mass of inextricable confusion which the ancients called 

Chaos. 

". . . . A (lark 
Illimitable ocean, without bound. 

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 
And time, and place, are lost; where Eldest Night 
3 



50 STUDIES IN THE CKEATIVE WEEK. 

And Chaos, ancestors of l^ature, hold 

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise 

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand ; 

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, 

Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring 

Their embryon atoms." — ("Paradise Lost," ii. 891-900.) 

Strikingly similar is the clescription by tlie Iieatlien 
poet Ovid : 

" Ere sea, or land, or sky, that covers all, 
Existed, over all of Nature's round 
One face there was, which men have Chaos named-^ 
A rude, unfathomed mass, with naught save weight : 
And here were heaped the jarring elements 
Of ill-connected things. No sun as yet 
His rays afforded to the world ; the moon 
Filled not afresh her horns by monthly growth ; 
Nor hung the globe in circumambient air, 
Poised by its balanced weight : nor had the sea 
Reached forth its arms along the distant shore : 
No land to stand upon, no wave to swim, 
And rayless air. Nothing preserved its form : 
Each thing opposed the rest ; since in one frame 
The cold with hot things fought, the moist with dry, 
The soft with hard, the light with heavy things." 

— (" Metamoepiioses," i. 5.) 

True, tliere is a large accretion here to the primeval 
Creation Archive as transmitted to us by Moses. ]S"ever- 
theless, recalling what was said in our Introductory Lect- 
ure respecting the wide-spread, venerable traditions touch- 
ing the primeval condition of the globe, who does not feel 
that Ovid obtained his clew from that hoary Creation Ar- 
chive ? 

And what Moses says touching the 

Sci^ce''''^™''*''''''^ original condition of the globe. Modern 
Science tends in a remarkable way to 



GENESIS OF ORDER. 51 

echo. If tlie magnificent ^sTebular Hypothesis of the as- 
tronomers — first propounded by Swedenborg, adopted by 
Kant, elaborated by Laplace and Herschel, and main- 
tained with modifications by snch scientists as Cuvier, 
Humboldt, Arago, Dana, and Guyot — be true, there has 
been a time when the Earth, and indeed the whole Uni- 
verse, was in a state of nebula, or chaotic gaseous fluid. 
As such, the Earth was indeed without form and void, and 
darkness was on the face of the deep. Being in a gaseous 
state, it was " without form and void ; " being as yet in 
an inactive state, it was " dark ; " being in a state of in- 
definite expansion, it was a " deep." Thus wonderfully 
does the hoariest specimen of human literature keep pace 
with the mightiest generalization of the latest science. 
I^ot that Moses knew anything about the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis ; though he was learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians (Acts vii. 32), he probably knew nothing of gravi- 
tation or chemical atoms. He was inspired indeed. But 
inspiration is not omniscience. And yet, as wonderful 
time rolls on, and Almighty God, through the agency of 
human discoveries, keeps unfolding the trutlis hidden in 
His holy Word from the beginning, inspiration does j)rac- 
tically take on more and more the giant outlines of Omnis- 
cience. The stoutest defender of the Nebular Hypothesis 
could hardly find more telling words for his theory than 
these : " Without form, void, dark, deep." Here, then, is 
the skeptic's harassing trilemma. He must either admit, 
first, that Moses was inspired, and therefore, whether con- 
sciously to himself or not it matters not, spoke the truth, 
and therefore ought to be acknowledged as one of God's 
authoritative spokesmen ; or, secondly, he must admit that 
Moses has made an exceedingly happy hit — a circumstance 
which will grow more and more wonderful when we note, 



52 STUDIES IX THE CKEATIVE WEEK. 

as we shall see ere we are tlirough, how many such remark- 
ably " happy hits " he makes in this Creation IN^arrative ; 
or, thirdly, he must admit that Moses, though living in that 
far-off, unscientific antiquity, was as profound a scientist as 
himself, and therefore is entitled to be enrolled with the 
ITewtons and Cuviers, the Ilumboldts and Tyndalls, of the 
modern Academy. Whichever horn of the trilemma our 
friend takes, he, so long as he is a skeptic, impales himself. 
"No, gentlemen, the God Who reigned over Nature when 
it was without form, and void, and darkness was on the 
face of the deep, is the same God Who dictated the First 
Two Chapters of Genesis. 

And now we pass to ponder, second- 
2.— The Organlz- ly, the Organizing Energy: "And the 

ing Energy. ^^[^.[^ q£ Qq^ moved upon the face of 

the waters." 
a.-The Breath of " The Spirit of God." It is the first 

^°^- time that this remarkable expression oc- 

curs in Holy Writ. Let us dwell on it a moment. The 
word here rendered "Spirit" primarily mxCans "breath, 
wind," etc., and, as a matter of fact, is often thus trans- 
lated. Take a few examples : " The TiOrd God formed 
the man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life " — inbreathed, inspired, in- 
spirited him with spirit (Gen. ii. V). " They heard the voice 
of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool " — ^the 
breeze, the spirit — of the day (Gen. iii. 8). " Moses stretched 
out his hand over the sea ; and the Lord caused the sea to 
go back by a strong east wind — spirit — all that night" 
(Ex. xiv. 21). " By the blast of the breath — spirit — of Thy 
nostrils, the waters were heaped up " (Ex. xv. 8). " By His 
spirit — ^breath — ^the heavens were garnished " (Job xxvi. 13). 
" There is a spirit — breath — ^in man, and the inspiration, 



GENESIS OF ORDER. 53 

inbreathing, of the Ahiiighty, givetli liim understanding " 
(Job xxxii. 8). " By the Word of the Lord were the heavens 
made, and all their host by the breath — spirit — of His 
month " (Psalm xxxiii. 6). " Tliou takest away their breath — • 
spirit : they die and return to their dust : " " Thou sendest 
forth Thy spirit — ^breath — ^they are created, and Thou re- 
newest the face of the earth " (Rsalm civ. 29, 30). " He took 
her by the hand, and called, saying. Maid, arise, and her 
spirit — breath — came again, and she arose straightway" 
(Luke viii. 54, 55). " When Jesus had received the vinegar. 
He said. It is finished, and He bowed His head, and 
gave up the ghost — spirit, breath " (Jolm xix. 30). " Then 
will the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord will con- 
sume with the spirit — breath — of His mouth, and destroy 
with the brightness of His coming " (2 Th. ii. 8). And God 
has been pleased to move the writers of His Scripture 
to take air as the emblem of the Divine Spirit. I know 
not why He was pleased to do this, unless it be because 
of the peculiar properties of air : a substance invisible, 
yet diffusive, subtilely permeating, animating, quickening, 
inspiring, forceful. I only know that He has chosen air 
as the symbol of the Spirit of God. Listen to a few ex- 
amples : " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
Cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one that is 
born of the Spirit — Wind, Breath" (John iii. 8). "He 
breathed on them, and saith to them, Eeceive ye the 
Holy Ghost — breath " (John xx. 22). " Suddenly there came 
a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and 
it filled all the house where they were sitting .... 
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit — breath" 

(Acts ii. 2-4). 



54 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

I would not be presumptuous. At 

the^'Ta^r'^'of The *^'^ ^^^® time I wouM be true to the 
Pj^jjg " Sacred Story we are studying, seeking 

to unfold it as the Sacred Writer him- 
self meant it. And, therefore, I must say I can hardly 
think that in using the phrase, " The Spirit of God," he 
meant any distinct reference to the Third Person of the 
Blessed and Adorable Trinity. For God's method of 
Revelation has ever been progressive ; and His disclosure 
of the peculiar relations of the Godhead is among His 
latest revelations. Remember the meaning of the word 
translated Spirit : it means breath. The Breath of God 
moved on the face of the waters. Remember, also, that 
we are here moving in the range of transcendent facts, 
where the language must be more or less figurative. Re- 
member, also, that the emphatic word, here and throughout 
this Creation Record, is the word — God. God it was 
Who created the elements of the Universe. God it was 
Who shaj)ed the elements of the Universe into the heavens 
and the earth. God it was Who, to use the language of 
modern Christian Science, gave the first impulse to the 
original, relationless atoms of the primeval chaotic fluids 
to form into definite groups. God it was Who, to use the 
artless language of the ancients, breathed on the chaotic 
elements, and wafted them into order. In either case, God 
it was Who shaped Chaos into Cosmos. The ancient be- 
liever said : " The Breath of God moved on the face of 
the waters." The modern believer says : " God willed 
that atoms should group into molecules, and molecules into 
masses." In other words, the language of tlie ancient was 
phenomenal, the language of the modern is scientific ; and, 
although believing the latter, I still suspect that, in the 
vision of the Omniscient One Who sees behind our Sci- 



GENESIS OF ORDE?v. 55 

ences, i. e., our notions of tilings, the old j)ictorial language 
is quite as true as the new philosophic. What the precise 
thing was which was effected when the Breath of God 
moved on the face of the fluids, I know not. Perhaps it 
was the endowing the atoms with the quantitative force of 
gravity, and the qualitative forces of chemism. But I am 
not here to deliver a scientific lecture. I am here to ex- 
pound, as best I may, the Mosaic Record of the Creation. 
And the truth we have in hand to-day is this : God's Will 
it was that turned Chaos into Cosmos. 

. And just here it is that the believer 

° ' crosses swords with the atheist. The 

great question of to-day in this department of thought is 
this: Is, the universe "a fortuitous concourse of atoms," 
chancing to come under the reign of an impersonal, unfree, 
unforeseeing, goalless Force ? Or is it the work of a per- 
sonal, free, creative, provisional, purposeful, living God? 
In briefest words : Is nature self -operant ? or is it God- 
operant ? Let me put the problem concretely, although, in 
doing so, I anticipate a point which will recur later on in 
this series. The most fascinating, baffling enigma of to- 
day is this : The Origin of Life. How shall we bridge the 
measureless chasm between dead matter and living matter, 
between chon as an inorganic corpse and chon as an or- 
ganic person ? What is that subtile, potent thing, vaguely 
called Principle of Life, Yital Force, etc., which, enshrined 
in the apparently structureless, dead centre of a micro- 
scopic cell, suddenly quickens it, endows it with energy, 
makes it a living, growing, parental thing ? This is the 
problem over which some of the keenest-eyed of the race 
are poring with intensest gaze. Need I say that they are 
gazing in vain ? Yet it need not be so. Long ages ago, 
when Humanity was yet young, an Oriental Emir, j^astur- 



56 STUDIES IX THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

ing Ms flocks amid the oases of Arabia Deserta, solved the 
problem. Listen : " The Spirit of God made me, and the 
Breath of the Almighty gave me life " (Job xxxiii. 4). And 
centuries afterward, in a fair territory hard by, a Psalm- 
ist, addressing that Divine Spirit from Whose presence 
he declared himself unable to flee, adoringly exclaims in 
vi^ords marvelously scientific : " I will praise Thee, for 
I am fearfully, wonderfully made : my substance was not 
hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth : Thine eyes did 
see my substance yet being unperfect — my unformed, un- 
structured substance ; and in Thy book all my members 
were written ; day by day were they fashioned, when there 
was none of them " (Psalm cxxxix. 14-16). Gentlemen of the 
laboratory, go on with your investigations. Ye are en- 
gaged in a noble service. From the bottom of my heart I 
say, God bless you, and make you successful in unravel- 
ing many another sublime secret of nature ! But, gentle- 
men, I prophesy one thing : 'No matter how perfect your 
instruments, how keen your vision, how splendid your 
genius, no instrument of yours will ever detect the Secret 
of Life. For that Secret is not material ; it is spiritual, 
and therefore forever and for evermore beyond the range 
of microscope. Ah, ye materialists, ye Haeckels and Mole- 
schotts and Feuerbachs and Yogts, fancying that ye " dis- 
cern in matter the promise and potency of every form and 
quality of life," yet unable, with all your science and all 
your appliances, to turn a single, definite, dead set of mole- 
cules into a lowest living organism, come with me, and I 
will show you when and where and how life originates. 
Bring along with you the whole of your apparatus, for I 
think ye will need it all. And now visit wdth me the ven- 
erable Prophet of the Euphrates. Following his lead, we 



GENESIS OF ORDER. 57 

go down into one of tlic great valleys of Babylonia. All 
around ns lies a vast liost of fleshless, unburied, dismem- 
bered skeletons. A voice is borne down to ns as tliougb 
from the skies ; " Son of man, can tliese dry bones live ? " 
'^ Oil yes," answer our materialistic friends ; " we have 
brought our retorts and crucibles and reagents and bat- 
teries and tables of chemical equivalents, and we propose 
to redeem the promise of life lurking in these skeletons ; 
we propose to evolve the potency of life ensconced in 
these bones." And so I see you setting to work imme- 
diately, consulting your tables, arranging your reagents, 
igniting your blow-pipes, connecting your galvanic cur- 
rents, adjusting your microscopes. And, lo, I confess, 
there is a sound, and a shaking, and a coming together of 
bones, bone to its bone ; and, lo, something that looks like 
a sinew does come upon them, and something that looks 
like skin does cover them ; but, strange to say, there is no 
breath in them. What tliough the skeletons have been 
articulated and enfleshed ? They are still only corpses. 
Ah, gentlemen of the laboratory, do not look so blank ! 
for do ye not believe in Baal, the Sun-god, ISTature's grand 
Yivifier ? "Wonderful he is ; but possibly he is meditat- 
ing, or has stepped aside, or is on a journey, or peradven- 
ture he is asleep, and must be awaked (i Kings xviii. 18). 
Cry then louder, and arrest his notice. And so I see you 
leaping on his altar, trying this and that reagent, hurry- 
ing to the microscope, shouting to Great Baal even "from 
dewy morn to stilly eve." And yet there is no breath in 
tliese enfleshed skeletons ; they are still only prone, mo- 
tionless, white cadavers. Again a voice is borne down to 
us from the skies : " Son of man, can these bones live ? " 
I look at my materialistic friends, and they turn away 
from their table of chemical equivalents, and are silent. 



58 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

I look up to the heaven of heavens, and I reverently an- 
swer : " O Lord God, Thon knowest ; the God that an- 
swereth by fire from heaven, let Him be God." And 
now is borne down to lis, as from the very throne of the 
King Eternal, Invisible, the blessed and only Potentate, the 
Life-giving Yoice : " Prophesy to the Wind, Son of man, 
prophesy, and say to the Wind : Thns saith the Lord God : 
Come Thou from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe 
upon these dead, that they may live." I homagefuUy 
obey ; and, lo, the Breath instantly comes into them, and 
they are alive, and stand on their feet, an exceeding great 
army (Ez. xxxvii. i-io). Ah, gentlemen of the Academy, 
there is the key to the Problem of Life ! It is not in any 
material atom, any molecular arrangement, any chemi- 
cal interplay, any convertibility of Force ; it is in the 
Spirit of the living God, the inspiration of the Ancient of 
Days, the inbreathing of the Father of Spirits. Ay, the 
Patriarch of Arabia was right : " The Spirit of God made 
mo, and the Breath of the Almighty hath given me life " 
(Job xxxiii. 4). That is the Secret of all life — life human, 
animal, vegetal. That is the vitalizing Force of the bio- 
plast, the Vis JFormativa, the Quickening, Plastic Energy 
of the Universe. And that Energy, as our passage in- 
forms us, was at work from the beginning. " The earth 
was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face 
of the deep ; and the Breath of God moved over the face 
of the fluids." In some sense and way, chemically inscru- 
table to us, the Spirit of God, the Heavenly Wind, the 
Divine Breath, hovered over ancient Chaos, quickening, 
marshaling, coordinating, organizing its motley, chaotic 
atoms, breathing over the wild, desolate, ebon immensity 
His own Energy of life and order and unity and peace and 
beauty. Great poets are ever, even though unconsciously 



GENESIS OF ORDER. 59 

to tliemselves, great pliilosopliers. And the Bard of " Para- 
dise Lost " is alike Scripturallj and scientificall j riglit when, 
invoking the Spirit of God as his muse, he sings : 

"Thou from the first 
"Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread 
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast abyss, 
And mad'st it pregnant.'' — ('' Paeadise Lost," i. 19-22.) 

Ay, Gentlemen of the Materialistic Philosophy, you 
may believe, if you choose, in the Universe as a self -con- 
structed, self -running machine : I prefer to believe in it 
as the Breath of God. 

Such is the Story of the Genesis of Order. 
II.— Moral Mean- And now let us attend to the Moral 

ing of the Story. Meaning of the Story. 

.„^., , . And, first: all life besjins chaotic- 

1 \\\ Life bc""ins 

chaotically. ° a%- It IS true of physical life. Look 
at this bioplast ; the most powerful mi- 
croscope fails to detect in it much sign of system, or struct- 
ure : the most that it detects is a tiny grouping of seem- 
ingly unarranged, chaotic material ; in fact, so structureless 
does it seem, that the microscope declines to prophesy 
whether it will unfold into a cedar, an elej)hant, or a man. 
Again : it is true of intellectual life. Look at this new- 
born infant : how nebulous and chaotic its conceptions ! 
Your little one may grow into a Shakespeare ; but at pres- 
ent, and intellectually surveyed — forgive me, fond mother, 
for saying it — your little one is scarcely more than a little 
animal. Do we not apply indiscriminately to infants and 
animals the impersonal pronoun " it ? " Once more : it is 
true of moral life. That is not "first which is sj^iritual, 
but that which is natural : then that which is spiritual 
(Cor. XV. 46). Look at Humanity as a whole, and through 



60 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the ages, ancient, mediaeval, modern. How vast but abor- 
tive its endeavors ! How besmeared its history with idol- 
atries, barbarisms, wars, bntcheries, oppressions, crimes, 
blasphemies ! Yerily, Humanity, compared with its la- 
tent, transcendent possibilities, is indeed a chaos, without 
form, and void, and darkness is over its deep. And what 
is so sadly true of Humanity as a whole, is as sadly true 
of each member of Humanity, at least in his natural, or 
rather unnatural, denatured state. For each man is a mi- 
crocosm, a miniature world of his own. And each man, 
compared with what is conceivable concerning him, is a 
chaos. Gaze on him for a moment ; how dulled his reli- 
gious sensibilities, how disheveled his moral affections, 
how sterile his spiritual capacities, how perverted his 
conscience, how misconceived his goal, how ignoble his 
choices, how downward his tendencies ! True, the ivy 
of a graceful morality often exquisitely festoons the 
piers and arches and towers of the temple of his soul; 
but this very morality itself, like the lovely ivy man- 
tling the venerable Abbeys of the Old "World, testifies, 
it may be, that the sacred fabric is crumbling into dust. 
Do you say that my judgment is too severe ? My re- 
ply shall be simple, and, as I think, decisive. Our own. 
chaotic state does not permit us to be good judges in 
this master. The reptile probably is not aware of his own 
loathsomeness ; but let him become something nobler, say 
an eagle, a man, or an angel, and then he will see how 
reptilian he once was. Yes, friend, surveying man's ma- 
jestically promiseful yet stunted capacities, his vast em- 
bryonic but abortive powers, comparing him with what 
is conceivable for him, man is indeed a chaos, without 
form, and void, and darkness is over the face of the 
deep. 



gp:ne3is of order. G1 

Is there any hope here ? Thank 

the O^^JTiJn^^^^^^ ^^^' *^^^^'^ '^- -^^^ ^^ ^^ P^^^ *^ ^"'' 
second lesson. That same Breath of 

God Avhich moved over the face of those ancient fluids, 
is moving to-day over the soul of humanity. Ah, this is 
the blessed Energy by which the chaos of our moral na- 
ture is being organized into order and beauty. Observe : 
as, in shaping the material Earth out of the old Chaos, the 
Spirit of God added no new elements, but simply fash- 
ioned into order the old ; so, in organizing the spiritual 
chaos, He adds no new faculties, but simply quickens and 
organizes the old. What man needs is not creation, but 
re-creation ; not generation, but re-generation. And this 
it is which the Holy Ghost is achievmg. Brooding, incu- 
bating as God's Holy Dove over the Chaos of Humanity, 
He is quickening its latent forces, arranging its elements, 
assorting its capacities, organizing its functions, apportion- 
ing its gifts, perfecting its potentialities : in short, com- 
pleting, fulfilling, consummating Man in the sphere of 
Jesus Christ. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the God- 
head bodily, and in Him ye are complete, completed, filled 
full, fulfilled, consummated (Col. ii. 9-1 o). Most meet then 
was it that when the Son of God was baptized, this same 
most Holy Spirit, even God's own blessed Bird, which 
had hovered over ancient Chaos, should descend in bodily 
shape like a dove, and alight upon the Bepresentative 
of Human Nature, even that Son of Man in whom the 
Chaos of Humanity is being organized into the Cosmos of 
the Church. And no power but the Holy Ghost can 
achieve this. Disorder cannot unravel itself into order ; 
Chaos cannot evolve itself into Cosmos ; Beelzebub cannot 
cast out Beelzebub. Only the Spirit of God can organize 
Chaos. And this, praised be His Grace, He is doing. No 



G2 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

man knows what is in him ; no man really puts forth his 
better, his characterizing, his divine powers till his sonl 
feels the life-giving warmth of the Spirit's tonch. And 
then he awakes, oh, how gloriously ! to the sense of sublime 
energies, to the mastery of celestial ranges. And this it is 
which the Spirit has been doing, even from the beginning. 
True, the process has been a slow one, even as it seems to 
have been in the case of the physical chaos. See, e. g., 
how slow has been the growth of Christendom taken as a 
matter of geography. Eighteen centuries have rolled 
away since the Heavenly Sower declared that His field is 
the world ; and yet by far the greater portion of that field 
is still heathen, never as yet sown with the Heavenly Seed. 
Again : see how slow has been the growth of moral ideas. 
Eighteen centuries have rolled away since the Lord of the 
Kingdom pronounced His Beatitudes. And yet there are 
still in His Church the proud in spirit, and the ambitious, 
and the avaricious, and the self -loving, and the quarrel- 
some, and the revengeful. ]^evertheless, for let us be 
just, there has been growth — a real, positive, solid ad- 
vance. We have seen idolatry shaken, and polygamy 
curbed, and slavery abolished, and intemperance checked, 
and woman emancipated, and brotherhood asserted, and 
war preparing to go into perpetual exile. And the 
growth has been an orderly one ; first the blade, then 
the ear, then the full corn in the ear (Mark iv. 26-29). It is 
true in respect to doctrine. First Peter, the Apostle of 
Form ; then Paul, the Apostle of Creed ; then John, the 
Apostle of Life. First Athanasius, exponent of the Doc- 
trine of Christ ; then Augustine, exponent of the Doctrine 
of Man ; then Anselm, exponent of the Doctrine of Grace. 
I^or has the growth or advancing order of due succession 
ceased. The problem of this present age is the Doctrine 



GENESIS OF ORDER. 63 

of tlie Cliurcli, or wliat constitutes tlie true Body of Christ. 
And even now we see glimmers of the final Doctrine — the 
Parousia, or Doctrine of Last Things. And this law of 
orderly unfolding is equally true in respect to personal 
character. We may not expect to see the full-bearded 
grain of saintliness i^receding the blades of youthful piety, 
or the ripe, rich fruits of heavenhood clustered around the 
subterranean root of faith. First children, then young 
men, then fathers (i John ii. 12-11). Yes, Humanity as a 
whole is ever taking on symmetry, and peace, and beauty. 
Even the bad man, however much he may hate Christian- 
ity, would not exchange Cliristendom for Heathendom. 
Nay, more ; the world's future will ever be greater and 
diviner than its past, because, evermore beneath the Spirit's 
brooding wing, it is evermore taking on growth and meth- 
od, evermore becoming more and more divinely pur230se 
f ul, evermore becoming more and more conscious of a voca- 
tion to divine Sonship and everlasting j^raise. And so at 
last shall dawn the day of perfectation, even those Edenic 
Times of the Eestitution of all things-, of which God hath 
spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the 
world began (Acts iii. 21). Then, out of the Chaos of Hu- 
manity, even the spiritual heavens and earth, which now 
are, shall be seen rising in measureless amplitude, and daz- 
zling stateliness, and eternal stability, the Cosmos of the 
Church, even the new Heavens and new Earth wherein 
dwell etli Righteousness (2 Peter iii. 13). 

Finally, would you be inserted as a 

A Personal Exhor- t • , • ii . • m in 

^^,j^^ living stone in that coming Temple ? 

Then open the chambers of your soul 

to the Holy Breeze of God. Be wafted heavenward on 

tlie zephyrs of His Breath. Even now, awake, O North 

Wind, and come. Thou South, and breathe on these dead, 



64 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK.' 

that they may live (Cant. iv. 16). Yea, Thou risen Son of 
God, breathe on ns all, that we too may receive the Holy 

Ghost (John XX. 22) ! 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE ly. 

GENESIS OF LIGHT. 

"And God said, Let there be light, and there was light; and 
God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light 
from the darkness ; and God called the light Day, and the darkness 
He called Night; and the evening and the morning were the first 
day. "--Genesis i. 3-5. 

Akd, first, let us ponder our passage 
L— Explanation • ., v^. i • td i ii 

„ ^, „ ^ in its literal meanmcr. Jrrobably we 

of the Passage. ^ ;' 

cannot do better here than to take up 
the successive clauses in their order. 

" And God said." How are we to 
1.—" God said : " understand this phrase ? Are we to 

An Anthropomorph- , , ., t, n n * 

.g^ take it literally ( Are we to suppose 

that in that primeval solitude when the 
earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon 
the face of the deep, the Creator literally vented His will 
in articulate speech — His audible voice j)ealing and rever- 
berating through that chaotic, desolate, night-clad abyss ? 
I can hardly think it. Evidently it is what the theologians 
call an Anthropomorphism ; that is to say, an application 
to God of terais which properly belong to human beings. 
It is like those many Scriptural phrases which speak of 
God's eye, God's ear, God's hand, God's face, God's 
mouth, God's voice. Moreover: recall what was said in 
the Introductory Lecture touching the mode of the Divine 



C6 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

revelation of the Creative Process to the original Narrator. 
According to the view then set forth this whole revelation 
of the Creative Week was Divinely made known to the 
sacred, inspired Observer in a trance or spiritual vision, 
wherein he saw what seemed to him to be the Creator's 
form and movements, and heard what seemed to be the 
Creator's voice. But though the Story of the Creative 
Week is a Divinely inspired record of a Divinely vouch- 
safed vision, it is as Divinely true as any of the Apocalyp- 
tic visions Divinely vouchsafed the Exile of Patmos. 

" God said." It is the first occur- 
2.-TI1C God-Said ^g^^g ^f ^|^.g remarkable phrase. Ten 

of Moses the God- . . . , t . , i . v-m 

Word of John. tmies it IS repeated m this Creation 

Archive. It is one of the characteriz- 
ing formulas of the Old Testament, constantly recurring 
and reappearing in such kindred phrases as these : " God 
spake, saying;" "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts;" " The Word 
of the Lord came, saying," etc. A phrase so perpetually 
recurrent must carry in itself something fundamental. The 
key is to be found in the Prologue of St. John's Gospel : 
" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God " (John i. i). That is to say : 
The " God-Said " of the Old Testament is the " God-Word " 
of the I^ew Testament ; the " God-Spake" of Creation, the 
Divine Logos, or Jesus Christ, of Redemption. Moreover : 
from this Prologue of the Apostle John we learn that Jesus 
Christ Himself was the mediating agent of the Creative 
Act : "In the beginning was the Word — the God-Said ; 
and the Word — the God-Said — was with God ; and the 
Word — the God-Said — ^was God ; all things through Him 
were made, and without Him was made not one thing that 
hath been made ; in Him was Life ; and the Life was the 
Light of men " (John i. 1-4). Yes, in Jesus Christ — in the 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 07 

God-Said of Moses and the God-AVord of Jolm — "were 
all tilings created, tlie things in the heavens and the things 
on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, 
whether thrones or dominions or i3rincij)alities or powers ; 
all things throngh liim and for Him have been created ; 
and He is before all things ; and all things in Plim sub- 
sist " (Col. i. 16, 11). And how majestic the brevity of this 
Divine Dictum of Light ! " God said, ' Let Light be,' and 
Light was." Longinus, the famous Greek critic of Pal- 
myra, writing on the Sublime, calls it an illustration of 
his theme. Recall the lifeless, orderless, chaotic, ebon 
abyss. And now the Eternal Word speaks : " Let Light 
be," and Light is. Ah, man's words are but sounds ; 
God's words are deeds. He but speaks ; and, lo ! light, 
sky, ocean, mountain, tree, animal, man, star, universe! 
He spake, and it was ; He commanded, and it stood fast 
(Psalm xxxiii. 9) ! All that is — what is it but the God-said 
of Creation ? 

But I'ust here an astronomic diffi- 

3. The First LMit ,^ . m j. ij • 

. ^ "^ culty arises, ihe sun, we are told, is 

the primary source of Light. And yet 
later on in this Creation Archive we are told that God 
did not make the sun till the Fourth Day (Gen. i. 14-19). 
How then could there have been Light on the First Day ? 
It is a difficulty on which the skeptics, I hardly need tell 
you, have not been slow to seize. And yet it is an exceed- 
ingly superficial objection — an objection which the scientist 
of all men ought to be the very last to make. For the fa- 
mous JSTebalar Hypothesis of Laplace, to which I adverted 
in the last lecture — a hypothesis stoutly maintained by many 
of the leading scientists of to-day — distinctly asserts that 
the condensation of the originally formless, void, dark, gase- 
ous chaos, accompanied by intense molecular or chemical 



68 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

activity, must have emitted Light. Eemember that the 
division of the Hebrew Bible into chapters, verses, clauses 
— in short, the punctuation of the original Plebrew — is not 
inspired ; this is altogether a human, artificial arrangement. 
I am not sure but that the marvelous phrase, " The Spirit, 
or Breath, of God moved on the face of the fluids " (Gen. 
i. 2), was meant to stand as the preface to the whole Cre- 
ative Week, as a caption to each of the Creative Days ; 
and assuming this to be so, w^e can easily conceive that the 
first result of the breathing of the Creator would be atomic 
movement or molecular activity; and this, if sufficiently 
intense, would result in incandescence ; that is to say. Light. 
Thus the very Nebular Hypothesis itself, which some of 
the skeptics have undertaken to suborn as a witness against 
Moses, turns out to be an august witness for him. Why 
will not men be just ? Why will the Academy vote Moses 
a blunderer for declaring that Light existed before the sun, 
and yet vote Laplace a scientist for declaring precisely 
the same thing ? And yet Moses was no scientist. Liv- 
ing in that far-off unscientific, infantile antiquity, he knew 
nothing about the JSTebular Hypothesis, or incandescence 
as the issue of molecular activity. How came he then, 
babe of an unscientific antiquity though he was, to antici- 
pate the grandest hypothesis of Modern Science? Is 
there any more philosophical solution than this : Moses 
was Divinely inspired ? 

" And God saw the Light, that it 

4- ^— TjlcssccliiGSS of 

j^j^,|^^ was good." Ah, what a blessed thing 

is Light — ^blessed in itself, blessed in its 
effects. How deliciously and beneficently it floods moun- 
tain and meadow, city and hamlet, bearing on its swift 
wavelets brightness and beauty and health and gladness ! 
It is to Light that the cloud, the sunset, the rainbow, 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 69 

tlie diamond, tlie violet, owe tlieir exquisite hues. Tnily 
tlie light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes 
to behold the sun (Eccl. xi. 7). Nay, more : Light is one of 
the essential conditions of all life itself — alike vegetal, 
animal, human, and, doubtless, angelic. Yes, there is a 
better curative than allopathy or homoeopathy, hydropathy 
or aeropathy ; it is heliopathy, or light of the sun. Phy- 
sicians understand this, and so seek for their patients the 
sunny side of hospitals. And so they unconsciously con- 
firm the Holy Saying, " To you that fear My name shall 
the Sun of Eighteousness arise with healing in His wings " 
(Mai. iv. 2). Yes, our debt of thankfulness to Light is sim- 
ply incalculable. It is under its blessed ministry that the 
cloud takes its tint, and the rose its hue, and the cheek 
its blush ; that the farmer sows his seed, and the artisan 
plies his tools, and the pilot guides his ship, and the stu- 
dent reads his book, and the lover e'^changes with his loved 
one the tender glance, and the invalid regains his health, 
and the worshiper finds his way to God's temple. It mat- 
ters not how perfect the structure and government of the 
world are in other respects ; how accurate the adjustments 
of the elements and forces of ]N"ature ; how mighty the in- 
tellect of man ; how indomitable his will ; how steady his 
arm ; how^ perfect his eye as an organ of vision — let only 
Liglit be annihilated, and the machinery of society comes 
to a stop, and earth itself dissolves into its primeval chaos. 
How horrible a sunless world would be, Byron has j^ictured 
in his terrible Poem on " Darkness." In brief : it is because 
there is si;ch a thing as Light that earth is what it is — a 
theatre for the display of the Creator's effulgence, and not 
a sepulchre for entombing it. No wonder then, when God 
saw the Light He had spoken into being, it seemed to Him 
good." No vrondcr cither that Light, in some one of its 



70 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

aspects — as sun, or moon, or star, or fire — ^lias been the ob- 
ject of adoration from time immemorial. The Phoenician 
had his Baal, the Egyptian his Osiris, the Persian his Or- 
nuizd, the Hindoo his Indra, the Greek his Phoebus, the 
Poman his Apollo — for these are but different systems of 
Light Worship. Listen to the Patriarch of Uz, as he pro- 
tests his innocence in this very matter : 

" If I beheld the sun when it shined, 
And the moon walking in majesty, 
And my heart was secretly enticed, 
And my mouth kissed my hand — 
This also were a crime to be judged. 
For I should have been false to God on high." 

—(Job xxxi. 26-28.) 

But what the heathen ignorantly worshiped, that the Bible 
declares to us. But let me not anticipate. 

'^ And God divided the Light from 
. '^'~ ' ' °' ' the darkness : and God called the Lisrht 

ing. c5 

Day, and the Darkness He called IN'ight : 
and the evening and the morning were the First Day." 

And here comes into view a second astronomic difii- 
culty : How shall the terms " day, night, morning, even- 
ing, first day," be understood in light of the subsequent 
statement that the sun was not made till the Fourth Day, 
and also of the apparent teaching of Geology, that im- 
measurable ages were occupied in world-building ? Vari- 
ous solutions have been proposed. It is not necessary to 
detail them. My own conviction is, as already set forth 
at length in the Introductory Lecture, that the best solu- 
tion is that which supposes that the original I^arrator was 
Divinely vouchsafed an apocalypse, or spiritual vision, in 
vv^hich a panorama of the Creative Week was unrolled be- 
fore him, the successive events seeming to occur in ]:>eriods 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 71 

of twenty-four hours each. In otlier words : the language 
is not scientific, but optical; not philosophical, but pic- 
torial ; not literal, but scenic. And yet, philosophically and 
morally interpreted, it is profoundly true. For observe 
the order of the words : It is not first morning, and then 
evening ; it is first evening, then morning : " And there 
was evening, and there was morning, day one." Translat- 
ing this primeval, childlike, scenic language into the rigid, 
elaborate language of the modern Nebular Hypothesis, see 
how marvelously true it is. First : the evening of the form- 
less, void, dark chaos ; then the morning of the atomic vi- 
bration, or chemical movement, issuing in incandescent light. 
And for aught we know, and, indeed, as there is immense 
reason for believing, that evening of chaos, and that morning 
of chemism, making a night of darkness and a day of light, 
continued through thousands and millions of years. How 
striking, in this connection, the Ninetieth Psalm, written, 
it is believed, by this very Moses who transcribed for us 
the original, inspired Tradition of Creation : " Lord, Thou 
hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before 
the mountains were brought forth, and Thou gavest birth 
to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to ever- 
lasting, from olam to olam, from aeon to 8eon, from era to 
era. Thou art God. Thou turnest man to dust, and sayest, 
' Return, ye sons of men.' For a thousand years in Thy 
sight are as yesterday when it is passed, and as a w^atcli 
in the night " (Psalm xc. 1-4). Yes, " one day is with the 
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day" (2 Peter iii. 8). Ah, this conception of the Primal, 
Infinite Cause, as working in succession, or measures of 
human time — what is it but a testimony to human finite- 
ness and weakness ? Felicitously has the Laureate ex- 
pressed it : 



72 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

" To your question now, 
Whicli touches on the Workman and His work. 
Let there be Light, and there was Light : 'tis so : 
For was, and is, and will he, are hut is ; 
And all creation is one act at once, 
The birth of Light : but we that are not all. 
As parts can see but parts, now this, now that, 
And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 
One act a phantom of succession : thus 
Our weakness, somehow, shapes the shadow. Time." 

—("The Peincess.") 

Siicli is the story of the Genesis of Light. 

II.— Moral Mean- And now let ns attend to the Moral 

ing of our Passage. Meaning of the Story. 

^ , . ^ . , First of all, I wish to direct your 

1.— God is Light. . ' in-,-, . ,. 

attention to a remarkable declaration oi 

Holy Writ. The Apostle John tells ns that he has received 
a message from Jesus Christ ; and then he proceeds to de- 
clare to ns that message. What now is the message and dec- 
laration ? Is it that God is Trnth ? 'No. God is Eighteons- 
ness ? No. God is Love ? No. What then is it ? Listen : 
" This is the message which we have heard from Him, 
and declare nnto yon, that God is Light " (i John i. 5). An 
unexpected, impressive message, surely ! Had the Apostle 
told us that the message was, " God is Wisdom, Power, 
Holiness, Love," we might not have been surprised. But 
to be told, and this too after a preface of unwonted solem- 
nity, in which we are reminded that the message had come 
from Jesus Christ Himself, that the message was this : 
" God is Light : " this certainly is unlooked-for and even 
startling. Listen again : " This is the message whicli we 
have heard from Him, and announce unto you : ' God is 
Light.' " The announcement at once raises the surmise that 
tliero is not after all that radical difference between " Natu- 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 73 

ral Religion " and " Hevealed Religion," wliicli we so often 
imagine; but that tlie God of Creation and tlie God of 
Redemption is absolutely one : Creation being the reflec- 
tion of His face shining matterward, and Redemption the 
reflection of His face shining spiritward. For aught I 
know, the Apostle's message is literally true. Remember 
that when we are talking of Light, we are moving in 
presence of a very subtile mystery. The Origin and 'Na- 
ture of Light is still a profound problem. True, we talk 
learnedly and correctly about the laws of Light ; its laws 
of reflection, refraction, absorption, dispersion, polarization, 
etc. But these are only phenomena ; they tell us nothing 
about the nature or origin of Light itself. All w^e know 
of Light is merely a knowledge of the mode and laws of 
its motion. We do not know the essence of Light itself. 
Modern Science is no wiser here than Ancient. Listen to 
the Almighty, as, addressing the Emir of Arabia, He 
speaks out of the whirlwind, saying : 

" The way — where is it to Light's dwelling-place? 
And Darkness — where the place of its abode ? 
That thou shonldest take it to its bounds, 
Or know the way that leadeth to its house? " 

—(Job xxxviii. 19, 20.) 

One thing is certain : Light is the nearest known, sensi- 
ble approach to immateriality, being classed with its appar- 
ent kindred — heat, electricity, magnetism — among the im- 
ponderables. Indeed, the modern magnificent Undulatory 
Theory denies that Light is material, and aflirms that it is 
but a mode of motion. We are accustomed to say that 
there are but two things in the universe — Spirit and Mat- 
ter — and that the chasm between these is infinite. Possibly 
this is one of those assumptions which, did we know more, 
4 



74 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

we would affirm less. Possibly Liglit is an instance of 
what the philosophers call Tertium Quid — a third Some- 
thing, intermediate between Spirit and Matter, etheriallj 
bridging the measureless chasm. Possibly Light is God's 
natural expression, outflow, radiation, manifestation, vest- 
ment : 

" O Lord, ray God, Tliou art very great, 
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, 
Thou coverest Thyself with Light as with a mantle." 

— (Psalm civ. 1, 2.) 

Possibly, when the Creator moves in that finite world 
we call Time, He leaves Light as His personal vestige and 
train — His mantle ripples into Light, is Light itself. Pos- 
sibly the Bard of " Paradise Lost " is right when he sings : 

" Hail, Holy Light ! Offspring of Heaven, first-born. 
Or of the eternal, co-eternal Beam, 
Bright Effluence of brigM Essence Increate." 

— (" Paeadise Lost," iii. 1-G.) 

In view of this possibility, how natural as well as fitting 
that the ancient token of God's Personal Presence among 
the Hebrews should have been the Shechinah, or dazzling 
Glory-Cloud : 

" By day along the astonished lands. 
The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands 
Keturned the fiery column's glow." 

— (Sir Waltee Scott.) 

And, not only in Old Testament times, as when the 
Shechinah marshaled the hosts of Israel (Ex. xiii. 21), and 
rested on Sinai, and flashed over the Mercy-seat (Lev. xvi. 2), 
and flushed the Temple with its insufferable brightness 
(1 Kings viii. 10, 11), was the Glory-Cloud seen ; it reappeared 
in ISi ew Testament times, shining round about the Shep- 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 75 

herds of the Nativity (Luke ii. 9), hovering over the Mount 
of Transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 9), receiving the ascending Son 
of Man (Acts i. 9), gleaming over Saul of Tarsus with a 
splendor above the brightness of the mid-day sun (Acts xxvi. 
12, 13). Once more it will reappear, blazing as the great 
white Throne on which shall sit the descending Judge of 
quick and dead (Matt. xxiv. so). ]^ay, more, the Holy City 
itself, 'New Jerusalem, yet to come down from God out' 
of heaven, shall never have need of sun or moon to shine 
on it ; for the Glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb 
will be the Light thereof (Rev. xxi. 22, 23). This, then, is the 
message of the Son of the Highest through His Apostle 
John : God is Light. 

And as God is Light, so also are 

is tl^^LMit ^^'""''^ ^^'^ children Light. Expressly are they 
called Sons of Light (Luke xvi. 8). Ex- 
pressly is He called Father of Lights (James i. il). We 
know that light is latent in every form of matter; for, 
when sufficiently heated, it becomes incandescent — that is 
to say, self-luminous. What is flame but a mass of heated, 
visibly glowing gas ? True, it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be (i John iii. 2). J^evertheless, I believe that 
Light is latent within us all, and that by-and-by, at least 
in the case of God's saintly children, it will stream forth ; 
not that it will be evolved by the action of any heat or 
chemical force, but that, under the free, transcendent con- 
ditions of the heavenly estate, it will ray forth spontane- 
ously. I think we are permitted to read preluding hints 
of this in the self-luminousness of the summer glow-worm, 
the fitful firefly, the ploughing steamship's gorgeous wake, 
the gleaming shaft along the crest of the breaking ocean- 
surge, the vision of stars when the brain receives a sud- 
den concussion as in falling, the sense of light when the 



76 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

eyeball is accidentally pressed in tlie blackness of mid- 
night. But why do I speculate ? Have ye never read in 
tlie Scriptures how that the children of Israel could not 
steadfastly behold the face of Moses, because of the glory 
of his countenance when the skin of his face shone (Ex. xxxiv. 
29-35) ; how that the martyr Stephen's face, when he stood 
before the Council, shone as the face of an angel (Acts vi. 15) ; 
how that the Son of Man Himself, when He was praying, 
was transfigured, and the fashion of His countenance was 
altered, and His face shone as the sun, and His very rai- 
ment became exceeding white as the light, so as no fuller 
on earth can whiten (Matt. xvii. i-8); how that Moses and 
Elijah also appeared with Him in glory (Luke ix. so, 3i)? 
Have ye never read in the Scriptures how that Gabriel 
declared to Daniel that they who are wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament, and they who turn many 
to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever (Dan. xii. 3) : 
or how that the Master Himself declares that in the end 
of the world the righteous shall shine forth as the sun — 
ay, shine foHli — not in reflected light as the moon, but in 
original Liglit as the sun, in the Kingdom of their Father 
(ilatt. xiii. 43) ? Have ye never read in the Scriptures how 
that St. Paul tells us that when He, Who is our Life, shall 
ap23ear, we too shall appear with Him in glory (Col. iii. 4) : 
or how that we are to look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus 
Christ, Who will change the body of our humiliation, that 
it may be fashioned like the body of His glory — His efful- 
gence (Phil. iii. 21) — thus translating us into the glorious lib- 
erty — the liberty of the splendor, of the children of God 
— even that hour of the manifestation, the revelation, the 
disclosure, of the sons of God — the hour of their shining 
apocalypse as God's Sons (Rom. viii. 21) ? Ah, that is the 
blessed hour, O saint, when thou shalt indeed arise and 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 77 

sliine, tliy light breaking forth as the dawn (Is. iviii. 8). Ay, 
God is Light, and so also are God's children. 

Thirdly : Jesus Christ Himself, as 
XT- ^'lT r" r r. ^^l" Incarnate, is the Shadow of God's Lisrht. 

the Shadow of God. ' ^ 

Infinite God, Deity as unconditioned 
and absolute, no man hath ever seen or can ever see, and 
live (Ex. xxxiii. 20). He dwelleth in Light which no man 
can approach unto (i Tim. vi. 15), is Light itself. " Dark 
with excess of Light," we poor finite beings cannot behold 
Him except through the softening intervention of some 
medium. Therefore the Son of God, Brightness of His 
Glory and express Image of His Person (lleb. i. 3), Radiance 
of His Effulgence and Character or Impress of His Sub- 
stance, became incarnate, that in the softer morning star 
and suffused days23ring of the Incarnation we might be 
able to look on the dazzling Father of Lights, and not be 
dazed into blindness. How bright Christ's inherent Glory 
was, may be seen from the fact that when He had risen 
again, and appeared to Saul on his way to Damascus, His 
splendor was so effulgent that it actually smote the per- 
secutor into blindness (Acts xxii. 11). The Eternal Word, 
Who in the beginning was, and was with God, and w^as 
God (John i. 1), laid aside for a while the Glory which He 
had witli the Father before the world was (John xvii. 5), and 
became flesh (John i. 11), that throagh the mitigating veil 
of that flesh we might be able to gaze on the burning 
face of the Infinite One, and still live. The Incarnation 
was a benignant eclipse of the Light of Light, Christ's 
humanity casting its solemn, majestic shadow athwart tlie 
immensity of human time as His earthly nature swept in 
between Infinite God and finite man, thus graciously 
obscuring the otherwise intolerable, consuming I^laze. 
Wretched the man whom the god of this world has so 



78 STUDIES IX THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

blinded that that eclipse becomes a total one ! Blessed 
the man who, however profound the obscurity, still per- 
ceives the flashing corona of immortal Godhead ! Yea, 
thrice blessed the man who abideth under the shadow of 
the Almighty (Psalm xci. 1) ! Thus Jesus Christ is the Shad- 
ow of God ; and this in a twofold sense : a shadow of in- 
terception, and so obscuring God : and a shadow of repre- 
sentation, and so revealing God. Yea, that God, "Who in 
the beginning commanded light to shine out of darkness, 
amid the night-palled chaos, saying, " Let Light be," and, 
lo. Light was — that same God hath shined in our hearts 
to give the Light of the knowledge of the Glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. iv. 6). 

Fourthly : But Jesus Christ is not 
4.— Jesus Chiist ^^^1 ^|-^g shadow or tempered imaffe of 

the Light of the •{ 4. /t. • \i ^ 

■\YQY\d ^^^ • ^^ *'^^ ^^^T ^^^ ^^ becoming that 

shadow Jesus Christ also became the 
Light of the world (John viii. 12). Ah, how much the world 
needed His illumination ! Yerily, it was the land of dark- 
ness and the shadow of death — the land of darkness, as 
darkness itself, of the shadow of death, without any or- 
der, and where the light is as darkness (Job x. 21, 22). But, 
praised be Immanuel, the people who walked in darkness 
have seen a great Light ; and they who dwelt in the land 
of the shadow of death, upon them Light hath shined 
(Matt. iv. 16). The Dayspring from on high hath visited us 
(Luke i. 78), and the Sun of Righteousness hath risen on us 
with healing in His wings (Mai. iv, 2). The Son of God is 
the true Prometheus, descending from the true Olympus, 
bringing down to this darkened, groping, chaotic world 
the blazing torch of Heaven's own fire. In His Light we 
see Light (Psalm xxxvi. 9). He is the true Light, which, 
coming into the world, is enlightening every man (John i. y). 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 79 

And lie is enlightening every man tlirongli the manger in 
which He was laid, through the words He spake, through 
the works He wrought, through the example He set, 
through the character He was, through the death He en- 
dured, through the resurrection He won, tlirough the 
throne He holds. This, in fact, was the secret of the 
Christ's mission into the world. The very purpose why 
the Spirit of the Lord God had anointed Him was that 
He might proclaim recovery of sight to the blind (Is. Ixi. i) 
by becoming Himself the Light of men. True, the pro- 
cess of recovery has not been sudden : God knows it has 
been very gradual. In regaining our spiritual sight we, 
like the blind man of Bethsaida, at first see men as trees 
walking (Mark viii. 24). Saved though we are. Duty still 
calls us to delve as in mines of the earth. And so, as in 
the ancient Prophet's vision, for a long time it is neither 
day nor night : but be of good cheer, O saint, at eventide 
it shall be light (Zech. xiv. 7). Yea, light is sown for the 
righteous (Psalm xlvii. 11) : and, when in due time it is reaped, 
the harvest will be larger than the seed. 

*' We have but faith ; we cannot know : 
For knowledge is of things we see : 
And yet, we trust, it comes from Thee, 
A beam in darkness : let it grow." — ("In Memoriam.") 

Ay, the path of the just is like the light of dawn, which 
shineth more and more till the perfect day — the meridian, 
eternal noon (Prov. iv. I8). 

Fifthly : As Jesus Christ is tlie 
TT-'^'^u ^ /° ^ ^° ^^ Lifflit of tlie World, so also is His 

His Church. ^ ' 

Church : He, clear as the sun, she, fair 
as the moon, both together resplendent as an army with 
banners (Cant. vi. 10). Little as the world dreams it, the 



80 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Churcli of the living God, everlastingly circling in the 
sweet gravitation of love around the shining Snn of Eight- 
eousness, and lustrous with His beams, is the world's true 
Pharos, majestically towering amid the wastes of time's 
immensity, flashing forth its rays, 

"Like a shaft of light across the land, 
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
Through all the circle of the Golden Year." 

—(Tennyson.) 

Ah, there are times when you and I and the wisest of men, 
suddenly awaking to some great question concerning God, 
or Duty, or Eternity, feel the horror of a great darkness 
creeping over us (Gen. xv. 12). "Whither shall we turn for 
guidance ? To the phosphorescent light of Nature ? Alas, 
it is but the dim lustre of the glow-worm, the transient 
sparkle of the firefly, the deceitful ignis- fatuus of the 
marsh. Shall we turn to the artificial lights of the Acad- 
emy 1 Alas, its flickering torches, and flaring flambeaux, 
and dazzling calcium lights, however brilliant and useful 
for this world, are quenched amid the spray of the surg- 
ing billows of death. Whither then shall we turn for 
light? To that blessed halo, which, let down from the 
enthroned, radiant Son of God, encircles the head of the 
littlest of His babes. Ay, that is the Heaven-lighted au- 
rora before which earth's most refulgent orb " pales its un- 
effectual flre." O children of the Eternal Father, hide not 
then your light (Matt. v. 14-16). 

III.-In Conclu- ^wo thoughts in conclusion. 

gjon. And, first, a word of cheer for the 

1.— A Word of saint. Ye are sons of Light. Eecall 

^^^^^^- now how much Light means. It nleans 

all that is most bright and clean and direct and open and 
unselfish and spotless and lovely and healthful and true 



GENESIS OF LIGHT. 81 

and divine. How exceedingly great then your wealth ! 
Oh, live worthily of your rich estate. Walk in the Light, 
even as He is in the Light, and is Himself the Light 
(1 John i. 5-1). Let every sunrise summon you, not only to 
the true Light, but also to a closer, brighter walk with 
Him. The nearer Him, the more luminous. May the life 
of each one of us be in very truth a helianthus, evermore 
keeping our petals turned toward the Sun of Righteous- 
ness ! Yea, O Lord, evermore lift Thou upon us the light 
of Thy countenance, evermore cause Thy face to shine 
upon us. So shall we, with all Thy ransomed ones of 
every land and age, be made . meet to enter into the ex- 
ceeding rich patrimony, even the inheritance of the saints 
in Light (Col. i. 12). Ay, in that day of noontide splendor, 
when the Lord shall have bound up the breach of His peo- 
ple, and healed the w^ound of their stroke, the light of the 
moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the 
sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days (Is. xxx. 
26). Nay, more : in that day of eternal noontide, the sun 
shall no more be thy light ; neither for brightness shall 
the moon give light to thee : for the Lord shall be to thee 
an everlasting Light, and thy God, thy Glory (Is. Ix. 19). 

Finally : a word of entreaty to the 
2. -A Word of g.^^^^^ Qf ^^^^ Q ^^^^. .g ^^^^ 

Entreaty. ,. , .^ . 

most abounding light, if we persist in 
keeping our eyes closed? Awake, then, O sleeper, and 
arise from the dead, and Christ will give thee Light (Eph. 
V. 14). Oh, that at this very moment the day might dawn 
and the day-star arise in your heart (2 Peter i. 19) ! Hemem- 
ber that that same God, Who called light out of dark- 
ness, divided the Light from the darkness, calling the 
Light Day, and the darkness He called Night. As there is 
an eternal Day for the Son of Light, so there is an eternal 



82 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Night for the Son of Darkness. Give glory, then, to Je- 
hovah, thy God, before it groweth dark, and before thy 
feet stumble upon the dark mountains : and, while thou art 
looking for light, He turn it into the death-shade (Jcr. xiii. 16). 
MeJiT LicJit I gasped the great but Christless Goethe on 
his dying-bed. What Light is that which I see gleaming 
beyond tlie river, glinting even on the frowning crags 
which overhang the Valley of the Shadow of Death ? It 
is the Light of the city which hath the foundations (Heb. 
xi. 10), even that eternal, dazzling city, which will never 
need the light of sun or moon ; for the Effulgence of God 
doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the Splendor thereof Rev.) 
xxi. 23). 

" There is a region lovelier far 

Than sages tell, or poets sing, 
Brighter than noonday glories are, 

And softer than the tints of spring. 

It is not fanned by summer's gale ; 

'Tis not refreshed by vernal showers; 
It never needs the moonbeam pale, 

For there are known no evening hor.rs. 

Xo, for that world is ever bright 

With purest radiance all its own; 
The streams of uncreated Light 

Flow round it from th' eternal throne. 

In vain the curious, searching eye 

May seek to view the fair abode, 
Or find it in the starry sky : 

It is the dwelling-place of God." — (Tuck.) 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE Y. 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 



" And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the 
waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God 
made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the 
firmament from the waters which were above the firmament : and it 
was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening 
and the morning were the second day." — Genesis i. 6-8. 

I.— Explanation ^^^ "^^^ ^^^^ attend to the Exj)lana- 
of the Passage. tion of the Passage. 

And, first, what did the Sacred 
;. ~ T.\^^ci °"" Chronicler mean by the term " Firma- 

ccption of the Sky. -^ 

ment," or, more literally, " Expanse ? " 
Beware, then, at the very outset of trying to extort from 
the i^assage what is not in it. Beware of demanding from 
Moses the harvest of the Nineteenth Century of our Lord. 
Instead, then, of putting our meaning into Moses's words, 
is it not fairer, first of all, to ask what Moses himself 
meant? Having learned this, then it will be proper to 
ask whether his meaning is consistent with modern lights. 
Manifestly, then, the honest thing to do is, first of all, to 
forget modern attainments, and enter into sympathy with 
the simple, untutored conceptions of the ancients. Ee- 
membering now that the language of Scripture on such 
matters is not scientific, but phenomenal, let us try to 



84 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

dwarf ourselves backward tlioiisands of years, and catcli 
tlie primeval, cliildlike conception of the Expanse, or 
Heavens. To tlie ancient Hebrew the sky seemed a vast, 
outstretched, concave surface or expansion, in which the 
stars were fastened, and over which the ethereal waters 
were stored. In the light of this infant conception let me 
now recall to you, without comment, a few Scriptural ex- 
pressions. " He setteth a canopy over the face of the 
deep " (Prov. viii. 21) ; " He f oldeth up the heavens as a vest- 
ure " (Ileb. i. 12), " and rolleth them together as a scroll " 
(Is. xxxiv. 4) ; " He stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, 
and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in " (Is. xl. 22) ; 
" He walketh on the arch of heaven " (Job xxii. 14), " and 
sitteth upon the circle of the earth" (Is. xl 22); "He 
spreadeth out the skies, firm like a molten mirror " (Job 
xxxvii. 18) : " there was under His feet, as it w^ere, a paved 
work of sapphire stone, as it were heaven itself for clear- 
ness " (Ex. xxiv, 10) ; " praise Him, ye heavens of heaven, 
and ye waters that are above the heavens " (Psalm cxlviii. 4) ; 
" He opened the windows of heaven, and the rain was 
upon the earth forty days and forty nights " (Gen. vii. ii, 12). 
" Ah, all this," you tell me, " is scientifically false ; the 
sky is not a material arch, or tent, or barrier, with outlets 
for rain ; it is only the matterless limit of vision." I^ei- 
ther, let me again remind you, is there any such thing as 
" sunrise " or " sunset." To use such words is to utter 
what science declares is a falsehood. And yet your as- 
tronomer, living in the blaze of science, fresh from the 
discovery of spectrum analysis and satellites of Mars, and 
knowing too that his words are false, still persists in talk- 
ing of sunrise and ^nset. Will you, then, deny to the 
untutored Moses, speaking in the childlike language of 
that ancient, infant civilization, the privilege which you 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 85 

SO freely accord to tlie diploma-emblazoned, scientifically- 
speaking, nineteentli-century astronomer ? 

Taking now, as our clew, this primi- 
.1. \r ^^,^^^^^ ° tive, cliildlike conception of the sky as 

the Emergmg Sky. ^ x x i i xi i i 

an ontstretched, ethereal expanse, and 
keeping distinctly in mind that the language of Scripture 
on such matters is not scientific, but optical, describing 
things as they seem, let us try to picture to ourselves the 
process of the Second Day as it appeared to the Sacred 
Narrator, when, from his mount of inspired vision, he 
gazed down on Creation's unfolding panorama. Every- 
where is still a shapeless, desolate chaos. True, the Breath 
of God is moving over the face of the fluids, and marshal- 
ing the atoms into molecules, the molecules into masses. 
True, though the sun has not yet a2)peared, there is light ; 
it may be the fierce light of incandescence, atom clashing 
with atom, molecule with molecule, discharging flashes at 
every shock. But although the organizing Breath and the 
fiery glow are here, yet all is still in seething, tumultuous, 
chaotic confusion. And now a sudden break is seen. A 
broad, glorious band or expanse glides through the angry, 
chaotic waste, separating it into two distinct masses — the 
lower, the heavy fluids ; the upper, the ethereal vapors. 
The band, still bearing upward the vapor, swells and 
mounts and arches and vaults, till it becomes a concave 
liemisphere or dome. That separating, majestic dimension 
we cannot to this day call by a better name than the Ex- 
panse. And that Expanse God called Heavens. And 
there was evening and there was morning, a Second Day. 
Such is the panorama of the Birth of the Heavens. 

Still the question recurs : " What are 

m '~u r.' ° » ^ we to understand by the term ^ Ex- 
Term " Expanse." o , „ m i 

j)anse : " Two answers have been given. 



86 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

«. — Possibly the And, first, it has been commonly 
Atmosphere. gnpposed that the Expanse means the 

air or atmospheric heavens. Remember that though 
there were ah-eady the brooding Spirit and the mys- 
terious light, yet earth itself was still a confused, tu- 
multuous chaos. And our passage, it has been com- 
monly supposed, marks the first separation of the ele- 
ments, or the beginning of the reign of Order, by repre- 
senting the atmosphere as the means of separating the 
waters on the surface of the globe from the clouds or aerial 
waters ; in other words, that it describes the beginning of 
the process of evaporation. Assuming for a moment that 
this is a correct supposition, let us briefly dwell on it. 
Perhaps you think that this separation of the original mass 
of waters into two masses, the one below and the othei* 
above, was but a little thing to do, hardly worthy of occu- 
pying one of the Six Creative Days. Ponder, then, what 
a stupendous thing evaporation means. Consider the vast 
amount of water which may be and actually is stored up in 
the atmosphere. The average quantity of aqueous vapor, 
or water held in the air, is estimated to be 64,460,000,000,- 
000 tons. The annual amount of rainfall is estimated 
to be 186,240 cubic miles. If this rain were at any one 
moment equally spread over the land portion of the globe, 
it would cover all the Continents — Asia, Africa, Europe, 
ITorth and South America — with water three feet deep. 
Of course this water did not originate in the sky : some 
time or other it must have ascended. Reflect now that 
water in its natural state — i. e., water as water — is Y73 
times heavier than air. And now suppose that you had 
never heard or conceived of the principle of evaporation, 
and that you were required to lift up this vast mass of 
54,460,000,000,000 tons of water one mile, two, three, four, 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 87 

five miles, into the air, and keep it suspended there. The 
hydrostatic press is among the most powerful of existing 
machines. And yet the hydrostatic press, gigantically 
powerful as it is, compared with the force requisite to lift 
the atmospheric waters, is as the pressure of a scarcely-felt 
zephyr to the impact of a thousand million broadsides. 
Nevertheless, what man, or all mankind combined, cannot 
do, or begin to do, God may have done on the Second 
Day, and in all events does daily ; and this too with infi- 
nite ease and noiselessness. Water as vapor occupies 1,600 
times larger space than water as liquid. Hence w^ater in 
its vapor state is vastly lighter than air, and naturally 
ascends. This is the whole secret. Thus, by the simple, 
noiseless, generally invisible process of evaporation, this 
stupendous weight is raised to and kept suspended at this 
tremendous height. You know that the countless rivers 
of earth are evermore, day and night, pouring their vast 
volumes into the seas. Did you ever think why the seas 
do not ovei'flow ? E. g., the narrow river Jordan alone 
annually discharges into the Dead Sea, say, a billion tons 
of water, and the Dead Sea has no apparent outlet ; and 
yet it does not overflow. And why ? Because as much 
water soars from it as flows into it. Did you ever think 
w^hy the vast, inconceivable quantity of water suspended in 
the air does not fall on you in smiting, annihilating ava- 
lanches ? It is simply because the mists and clouds are but 
gigantic aerial reservoirs or tanks of w^ater, oftentimes 
thousands of feet in thickness and tens of thousands of 
acres in breadth. 'Now, is all this mere chance ? You 
would never imagine it about any sample of human hy- 
draulics. Suppose that some one who had never heard of 
the system of supplying cities with w^ater should be shown 
our own Fainiiount AVater-Works, with its elaborate ma- 



88 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

sonries, and aqueducts, and reservoirs, and gauges, and 
mains, and service-pipes, and faucets ; and suppose lie 
should see tlie whole system in actual operation all the 
way from the Schuylkill to the chamber in which he is 
lodging. Do you suppose that any amount of argumenta- 
tion would ever convince him that the whole system was 
in no wise a contrivance — ^nothing but pure accident ? 
The very suggestion would demonstrate to him that tlie 
arguer was an idiot. Now look at the august system which 
does actually supply this vast earth of ours with water; 
what is it but a gigantic system of Water-Works, occupy- 
ing very many thousands of miles in space, having its 
countless pumps of evaporation, and reservoirs of clouds, 
and service-pipes of rain ? And yet we are gravely told, 
and this by exceeding wise men, that this whole affair is 
no contrivance by an intelligent Designer — such as the 
unscientific and superstitious fancy ; it is only the fortu- 
nate result of a blind, unconscious movement of molecular 
activity. l!^evertheless, this blind, unconscious movement 
of molecular activity, very remarkable to add, considering 
i'low very blind and unconscious it is, persists in repeating 
precisely the same movement of water-supply from season 
to season, from century to century, from millennium to mil- 
lennium. How much more philosophical the theory of the 
unscientific, and, if you j)lease, superstitious writers of an- 
cient Scripture ! '' When God uttereth His voice. He 
causeth the vapors to ascend from the earth, and there is 
a multitude of waters in the heavens " (Jer. x. is). " He 
bindeth up the waters in His thick clouds, and the cloud 
is not rent under them " (Job xxvi. 8). '' Dost thou know 
the balancings of the clouds — the wonderful works of 
Him Who is perfect in knowledge ? " (Job xxxvii. 16) " He 
draweth up the drops of water, they pour down rain ac- 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 89 

cording to its vapor, wliich the skies do drop and distill 
upon man abundantly " (Job xxxvi. 27, 28). " Yea, Tliou 
hast visited the earth, and watered it ; Thou greatly en- 
richest it ; the river of God is full of water ; Thou water- 
est the ridges thereof abundantly ; Thou makest the earth 
soft with showers ; Thou blessest the sj)ringing thereof ; 
Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness, and Thy paths 
drop fatness" (Psalm ixv. 9-ii). There is a sense, then, in 
which we may truly speak of the atmosphere as an " Ex- 
panse," separating the waters into masses above and below. 
But, plausible as this interj^retation is, there is this objec- 
tion to it : Our Chronicler not only represents the Expanse 
as separating the waters into two masses ; he also distinctly 
represents the upper mass as being above the Expanse : 
God " divided the waters which were under the Expanse 
from the waters which were above the Expanse." And, 
many a century afterward, a Psalmist, summoning all crea- 
tion to praise the Maker of heaven and earth, exclaims : 

" Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, 
And ye waters that are above the heavens." 

— (Psalm cxlviii. 4.) 

And yet, as a matter of fact, the clouds and vaporous 
waters are not above the atmosphere ; they are in it. How 
constantly and densely the air is charged with aqueous 
vapor, the condensed drops on the outside of your ice- 
pitchers, even in the driest summer day, sufficiently prove. 
Moreover : if Moses by his word " Expanse " meant the 
atmospliere, it is fair to substitute the term atmosphere for 
the term Expanse ; and so our passage would read thus : 
" God said, ' Let there be an atmosphere in the midst of 
the waters, and let it divide waters from waters ; ' and 
God made the atmospliere ; and lie divided the waters 



90 STUDIES IN THE CHEATIVE WEEK. 

which were under the atmosphere from the waters which 
were above the atmosphere, and it was so : and God called 
the atmosphere Heavens." And this term " Heavens," be 
it observed, is the very term which, in connection with the 
term "Earth," comprised, according to the first verse of 
the Creation Archive, the whole created universe, sidereal 
as well as terrestrial : " In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth " (Gen. i. i). In brief, if by the word 
Expanse Moses meant the atmosjDliere, would he not have 
said so, especially as he already had the word for air at 
command, having just spoken of the Breath of God as 
moving over the face of the waters (Gen. i. 2) ? 

Accordingly I am inclined to believe 
gj^ ' ^^' ^ that we are to take the term Expanse as 

meaning that vast, indefinable exten- 
sion which stretches between the earth and the stars ; that 
is to say, the ethereal heavens. I have more than once 
alluded to the splendid ITebular Hypothesis : an hypothesis 
which, notwithstanding it has suffered some formidable 
assaults, still holds its own with some of the most eminent 
scientists of the day, alike Skeptical and Christian. Accord- 
ing to this hypothesis, the Solar System was originally a vast, 
chaotic, gaseous, rotating nebula, without form and void 
and dark. In process of time it condensed, and in con- 
densing, accompanied by atomic motion or chemical activ- 
ity, it became incandescent ; and in rotating it flung off 
successive portions from its own mass, which portions be- 
came in turn independent globes. "We seem to see e^d- 
dences of this in certain phenomena even now occurring, 
such as the nebulous stars, the comets, the rings of Saturn, 
the shooting stars, perhaps the Zodiacal Light. E'ow, if 
this famous E'ebular Hypothesis be true, the work of the 
Second Day may have consisted in swinging the earth 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 91 

from the original nebula, and so making a space or ex- 
panse between it and the rest of the universe ; the ter- 
restrial fluids or condensing vapors forming the waters 
below the Expanse, and the ethereal fluids forming the 
waters above the Expanse. In other words, it w^as the 
formation of the Skj. As such, the work of the Second 
Day was sublime beyond conception. JS^ot tliat the Sacred 
Chronicler consciously meant this. But, under the in- 
spiration of the Holy One, he builded larger than he 
knew. It is one of the properties of truth that it has an 
indefinite expansibility. Like the successive concentric 
circles of undulating water, it evermore repeats itself, and 
in repeating itself, it evermore widens. The Bible does 
not profess to be a scientific book. Accordingly it reveals 
in advance no scientific fact. But when, under the good 
Providence of our God, science does discover a new fact, 
it is also discovered that the Bible has from the outset mor- 
ally implicated it. And among the many blessed minis- 
tries of science none is more sacred than this : to decipher 
the Scriptural cipher. In all events, let us not be wise 
above what is written. Recall what was said in the be- 
ginning of this lecture. Beware of exporting from our 
text what after all is only our own import. When the 
statement is doubtful, instead of being dogmatic, let us 
modestly, calmly abide the tuition of events. One thing 
is certain : the God Who speaks in Nature, and the God 
Who speaks in Scripture, is one and the same God, and 
cannot contraaict Himself. And sooner or later humanity 
will acknowledge that the two declarations are a spiritual 
rhyme, a Divine melody. 

Such is the Story of the Genesis of the Sky. 

11. Moral Mean- And now what are the lessons of the 
ing of the Story. Story ? It teaches many : e.g., it teaches 



92 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the great lesson of Individuality. But as this will come be- 
fore us still more appropriately in our next lecture, let us 
reserve our comments till then. Meantime let us take our 
chief lesson to-day from the central point of our passage. 
That central point is this : " God called the Expanse Heav- 
en." In like manner also every human being has over him 
a possible firmament. Happy the day when the mists up- 
lift, and he awakens to the vision and sense of the arching 
Heavens ! 

And, first, the Heavens f.uo^s^est the 

1. The Sky sug- ,, ,' ' ,. •. • i 

^ ,. A • soul s true direction : it is upward. 

gests Human Aspira- • ^ 

tions. To express moral excellence by terms 

of altitude is an instinct. How natu- 
rally we use such phrases as these : " Exalted worth, high 
resolve, lofty purpose, elevated views, sublime character, 
eminent purity ! " How natnrally, too, we use opposite 
phrases : " Low instincts, base passions, degraded charac- 
ter, groveling habits, stooping to do it ! " 

" Down with the traitor, 
Up with the flag ! " 

In answer to the same instinct, the Jews always spoke 
of going up to their Holy City Jerusalem, even though in 
doing this they may have actually made a geographical 
descent, as was the case with the dwellers in Bethlehem 
and Hebron. In like manner, pagans instinctively local- 
ize their gods on mountain crests ; for example, the Per- 
sians on Caucasus, the Hindoos on Meru, the Greeks on 
Olympus. So the Jews themselves, when fallen into 
idolatry, consecrated high places and hill-tops. Doubtless 
here, too, is the secret of the arch, and esj^ecially the 
spire, as the symbol of Christian architecture : the Church 
is an aspiration. Even the very word "heaven" itself, 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 93 

like the Greek Ouranos, means lieiglit, and, according to 
the etymologists, is an Anglo-Saxon word, heo-fan ; mean- 
ing what is heaved up, lifted, heav-en — ^heaven. Well, 
then, may the vaulting sky stand as the symbol of human 
aspiration. The true life is a perpetual soaring and dom- 
ing ; or rather, like the mystic Temple of Ezekiel's vision, 
it is an inverted spiral, forever winding upward, and 
broadening as it winds (Ez. xii 1). The soul's true life is 
a perpetual exhalation ; her affections evermore evaporat- 
ing from her own great deep, and mounting heavenward 
in clouds of incense. Ah, it is not when man stoops 
downward to delve amid earthly treasures, it is not even 
when he strides forward to execute broad schemes, that he 
is greatest : man is greatest when, looking upward, he takes 
to himself wings, and flies. The yearnings after a better, 
purer, truer, diviner life, the aspirations heavenward : these 
are the true birds wdiicli God has made to fly above the 
earth, along the Ex23anse of the heavens. Yes, hail to thee, 
thou skylark of the soul ! 

" Ilig-hor still and higher, 
From th3 earth tlioa springest, 

Like ji cloud of fire ; 
The blue deep thou wiri;^est, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest." 

— (Shelley.) 

Secondly: As the Heavens suorcrcst 

2. And Divine rcr- , V ^. , . ^^ ^^ 

fg^jjyj^g human aspirations, so do the Heavens 

suggest their complement. Divine Per- 
fections. It is true, e. g., in respect to God's Immensity. 
Nothing seems so remote from us, or gives such an idea 
of vastness, as the dome of heaven. Climb we ever so 
high on mountain-top, the stars are still above us. Pierce 
vrc ever so far with telescopic ken, beyond its utmost 



94 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

range still arches the same ever-receding vault. It is the 
symbol of God's infinite Altitude. As the heavens are 
higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than man's 
ways, God's thoughts than man's thoughts (Is. iv. 9). He 
is the high and lofty One Who inhabiteth eternity, Whose 
name is Holy, Who dwelleth in the high and holy place 
(Is. ivii. 15). As, then, we think of His exceeding height, 
how vividly does the measureless distance between sky 
and earth' picture man's exceeding littleness, even in the 
moments of his supremest aspiration ! Again : It is true 
in respect to God's Sovereignty. !N"othing seems to be so 
absolutely beyond human control or modification as the 
sun and stars of heaven. 

" Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, 
Or loose the bands of Orion ? 
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, 
Or guide Arcturus with his sons ? 
Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens, 
Or canst thou set their dominion over the earth ? ' 

—(Job xxxviii. 31-33.) 

Yet it is the high and lofty One Who created all these. 
Who bringeth out their host by number, Who calleth them 
all by name, by the greatness of His might, and because He 
is strong in power (Is. xl. 26). What to man is canopy, to 
God is throne. He sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and 
the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers (Is. xl. 22). Yea, 
heaven is His throne, and earth is His footstool (Is. ixvi. i). 

"Sing unto God then, O, kingdoms of the earth, 
Sing praises to the Lord ; 

To Him Who rideth upon the heaven of heavens of old : 
Ascribe ye strength unto God : 
His excellency is over Israel, 
And His strength is in the skies." 

—(Psalm Ixviii. 32-34.) 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 95 

Again : It is true in respect to God's Spirituality. 
E'otliing seems so like that rarity of texture which we in- 
stinctively ascribe to pure, incorporeal spirit, as that subtile, 
tenuous ether which, it is believed, j)ervades the clear, im- 
palpable sky, and, indeed, all immensity. And in this sub- 
tile ether, so invisible to sight, so impalpable to touch, so 
diffused throughout earth and the spaces of the heavenly 
Expanse, we may behold a symbol of that invisible, intan- 
gible, ever-omnipresent One Who Himself is Spirit ; and 
Who, accordingly, can be worshiped only in spirit and 
truth (John iv. 24). Again : It is true in respect to God's 
Purity. Nothing is so exquisite an emblem of absolute 
spotlessness and eternal chastity, as the unsullied expanse 
of heaven, untrodden by mortal foot, unswept by aught 
but angel wings. Even the ancients called it the Emj^y- 
rean, as though it had been formed out of pure fire or light. 
How fit and glorious an emblem, then, the sky is of the 
Purity of Ilim Who is said to charge His angels with folly 
(Job. iv. 18), and in Whose sight the very heavens are de- 
clared to be unclean (Job xv. 15) 1 Again : It is true in 
respect to God's Beatitude. We cannot conceive a more 
perfect emblem of felicity and moral splendor than light. 
Everywhere and evermore, among rudest nations as well 
as among most refined, light is instinctively taken as the 
first and best possible emblem of whatever is most intense 
and perfect in blessedness and glory. And whence comes 
light — the light which arms us wdth health, and fills us 
with joy, and tints flower and cloud with beauty, and floods 
mountain and mead with splendor — but from the sky? 
Well, then, may the shining heaven be taken as the elect 
emblem of Him Who decketh Himself with light as with 
a robe (Psalm civ. 2), Wlio dwclletli in light which no man 
can approach unto (i Tim. vi. IG), Who Himself is the Father 



96 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

of lights (James i. I'z) ; nay, Who is Light itself (i John i. 5), 
Himself taking the place of candle and moon and sun in 
the City of the Fonndations (Rev. xxi. 23). Once more : It 
is true in respect to God's Obscurity. For though God 
Himself is light, yet there are times when even the very 
heavens themselves obscure His brightness. There are 
times when clouds and darkness are round about Him 
(Psalm xcvii. 2), wdien He layeth the rafters of His palace in 
the upper waters, and maketh the clouds His chariot, and 
walketh upon the wings of the wind (Psalm civ. 3), and hath 
His way in the wdiirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of 
His feet, and His pavilion round about Him are dark wa- 
ters and thick clouds of the skies (Nah. i. 3). Yea, there are 
times when it is the glory of God to conceal a thing (Prov. 
XXV. 2), and there is a hiding of His power (Hab. iii. 4). Happy 
the man who when Jehovah thundereth in the heavens, and 
the Most High shooteth out lightnings, hailstones, and coals 
of fire (Psalm xviii. 13, 14), and darkness is under His feet, still 
sees through the thick clouds the opening heavens, and 
the Glory of God, and Jesus standing in the midst of the 
Glory (Acts vii. 55, 56). Yea, praise the Lord, ye fire and 
hail, ye snows and vapors, ye stormy winds, fulfilling His 
w^ord (Psalm cxlviii. 8). Such are some of the particulars in 
which the heavenly Expanse is the symbol of Infinite 
Deity. And all this we hint, w^hether consciously or not, 
every time we pronounce those wonderful words. Our 
Father Who art in heaven (Matt. vi. 9). Heavenly Father : 
this sums up the meaning of the Sky. Such are some of 
the lessons of the Heavenly Expanse. 

In Conclusion. And now two thoughts in conclusion. 

1. — Jesus Christ And, first, a thought of the past. 

the Nexus of Heaven Since God is SO very great, how can we 

and Earth. gygj. liope to reach Him? Since His 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 97 

throne is so higli and lifted up (Is. vi. i), even above the 
heaven, and the heaven of heavens, how can we with our 
poor feet, or even with the wings of aspiration, ever hope 
to rest in His bosom, or even kiss His shining feet ? Be- 
hold, then, a condescension as measureless as the Infinitude. 
Thus saith the high and holy One, Who inhabiteth eter- 
nity. Whose name is Holy : I dwell in the high and holy 
place, also with the humble and contrite of spirit, to revive 
the spirit of the humble ones, and to revive the heart of 
the contrite (Is. ivii. 15). Since we cannot soar to Infinite 
God, Infinite God stooj)s to us. Yea, in the Person of 
the Incarnate Son, He has bowed the heavens and come 
down. The Immanuel of the manger. His brow of the 
Heavens, Heavenly, His feet of the earth, earthy, is the 
blessed meeting-place of the Infinite and the finite ; the 
rapturous trysting-place of Human aspiration and Divine 
response. Ay, the prophecy of Bethabara beyond Jordan 
has already been fulfilled. Yerily, verily, we have seen 
heaven opening, and the angels of God ascending and de- 
scending upon the Son of Man (John i. 51). And so in the 
stooping God of the Stall, and the soaring Man of the 
Cloud, even in Jesus the Nazarene, the Infinite and the 
finite are in peace : 

"And ITeayen comes down our souls to greet, 
And Glory crowns the mercy-seat." — (Stowell). 

„ c. r. 1 Finally, a thought for the future. 

2. — Sursum Corda. . ^ 

Every time you go forth under the open 
sky, be it cerulean, or be it overcast, let it be to you an 
eternal beckoner upward. God forbid that you should 
miss its meaning so deeply as to echo the Eoyal Dane's 
lament : " This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, 
this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof 



98 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

fretted with golden fire — why, it appears no other thing 
to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors " 
("Hamlet," ii. 3). All, friend, none bnt that Infinite God, of 
"Whom the infinite sky is the symbol, can ever satisfy yonr 
own mighty aspirations. For 

" Every inward aspiration is God's angel nndefiled, 

And in every ' O, my Father,' slumbers deep a ' Here, My child.' " 

— (DSCHELADEDDIN.) 

In yon measureless, ever-receding dome, you will ever 
find a limitless, exhilarating arena for all that in you is most 
noble and stout and true and Godward. Every time, then, 
that you go forth under heaven's arch, accept the sky as 
life's real meaning. On its azure, ever-soaring, infinite 
vault evermore read the sun-emblazoned legend, Excelsior. 
May the Lord of the skies evermore call the welkin of 
your soul Heavens! Thus, evermore aspiring, it shall 
happen that when the Lord Himself shall descend from 
heaven, with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and 
with the trumpet of God, thou, too, with all His ransomed 
ones, shall be caught up in clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air ; and so shalt thou ever be with the Lord (i Thess. iv. 16, 11). 
Meantime, evermore sing the Bird Song of the soul : 

*' Nearer, my God, to Thee, 

N'earer to Thee ; 
E'en though it be a cross, 

That raiseth me. 
Still all my song shall be, 
l^earer, my God, to Thee, 

Nearer to Thee. 



Or, if on joyful wing. 

Cleaving the sky. 
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, 

Upward I fly, 



GENESIS OF THE SKY. 99 

Still all my song shall be, 

Nearer, my God, to Thee, 

Nearer to Thee." 

— (Mrs. S. F. Adams.) 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE YL 

GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 

" And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered 
together unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it was so. 
And God called the dry land Earth : and the gathering together of 
the waters called He Seas : and God saw that it was good.'" — Gen- 
esis i. 9, 10. 

Translating tliis ancient, cliildlike, pictorial language 
into that of modern scientific prose, our Archive reads 
thus : The Creator outlined the general features of Physi- 
cal Geography, by causing the lands to emerge from the 
primeval ocean. 

I.— Explanation First of all, let us attend to the Ex- 
of the Passage. planation of the Passage. 

Reminding you of what was said in 
.— aiiorama o ^-j^^ introductory Lecture touching: the 

Emergent Lands. '^ i /. 

phenomenal or scenic language of 
Scripture on such matters, let us now forget modern at- 
tainments, and, going back to the dawn of humanity's in- 
fancy, stand with the Inspired Seer on his mount of pano- 
ramic vision. And an awful vision it is^ True, the Breath 
of God is still moving over the face of the abyss. True, 
there is still the incandescent light. True, the Expanse of 
the arching heavens has separated the fluids into masses — 
the terrestrial and the ethereal. K'evertheless, the globe 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 101 

itself is still a vast, relieiless, watery waste. 'No continent 
is seen, no mountain, no island, no rock, no shore, no bay, 
no surf ; nothing but a universal, shoreless, desolate Blank. 
And now is heard again the Omnific "Word : " Let the wa- 
ters under the heavens gather themselves to one place, and 
let the dry land appear ! " And, lo, the waters do hasten 
to their place, and the dry land does appear. And a sub- 
lime spectacle it is — this resurrection of the terrestrial 
forms out of Ocean's baptismal sepulchre — this emergence 
of island, and continent, and mountain — this heaving into 
sight of Britain and Madagascar and Cuba and Greenland, 
of Asia and Africa and Australia and America, of Alps and 
Himalayas and Andes and Sierra l^evada ; more thrilling 
still, of Ararat and Sinai and Pisgah and Carmel and Le- 
banon and Zion and Olivet. 

No wonder that the holy poets so often allude to the 
majestic event. Let two or three examples suffice. Thus : 

" The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, 
The world, and they wlio dwell therein : 
For He hatli founded it upon the seas, 
And established it upon the floods." — (Psalm xxiv. 1, 2.) 

Again : 

" Jehovah is a great God, 
And a great king above all gods : 
In His hand are the recesses of the earth, 
And the treasures of the mountains are His : 
The sea is His, and He made it. 
And His hands formed the dry land."— (Psalm xcv. 3-5.) 

Once more : 

" Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment : 
The waters stood above the mountains : 
At Thy rebuke they fled, 
At the voice of Thy thunder they hasted away : 



102 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

The mountains rose, the valleys sank, 

To the place which Thou didst found for them : 

A bound didst Thou set, that they should not pass over, 

Should not returuj to cover the earth." — (Psalm civ. 6-9.) 

2.— Geologic Con- And with this poetic Archive of the 
firmation. Emergent Lands the Geologic Eecord 

entirely agrees. Whatever doubts there may be touching 
the J^ebnlar Hypothesis, or the original condition of our 
globe, the geologists agree that there has been a time in 
the history of this earth when its surface was almost entire- 
ly oceanic, and that subsequently the lands emerged in 
consequence either of the subsidence of the ocean level, or 
of the upheaving energy of fiery or chemical forces. In 
fact, it is this assumption of a primitive universal ocean, 
charged with mineral particles, and depositing them through 
untold ages, thus forming the sedimentary or stratified 
rocks, which rocks were subsequently uplifted above the 
ocean by sub-aqueous forces — ^it is this very assumption, I 
say, of a primitive universal ocean, subsequently relieved 
by visible land areas, which makes it possible that there 
should be any such thing at all as the science of Geology. 
How could the geologist make out his magnificent geo- 
logical calendar, if it were not for the successive layers of 
deposited or stratified rocks of the lands upheaved into 
view from the depths of old Ocean's sepulchre ? And so, 
at this very point, the ancient seer and the modern skep- 
tic agree ; both say that the earth was formed out of water 
and by means of water (2 Peter lii. 5). But they differ as to 
the explanation. The ancient seer said, " The secret of 
Nature is God." The modern skeptic says, " The secret 
of ]J^ature is Law." And yet both speak truly, for Truth 
is evermore unutterably large : God is the cause of E'a- 
ture, and Law is God's means. In still briefer words. Law 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 103 

is God in movement. Ay, from Ilim, and tlirongli Him, 
and to Him, are all things : to Whom be the giory for ever. 
Amen (Rom. xi. 36). 

" And God saw that it was good." 
,, *~ ^ And well misrht He delis^ht in it. For a 

the Arrangement. " P . . . 

blessed thing this divine distribution 
of lands and seas was. I do not think that we snfficiently 
realize its importance. Let ns halt, then, for a moment to 
glance at some of the essential features of the Physical 
Geography of our globe. For what I am about to say on 
this point, I am chiefly indebted to Prof. Arnold Guyot's 
very suggestive and valuable work, entitled "The Earth 
and Man." Look, first, at the general arrangement of 
Land and Water. The surface of this globe measures 
196,900,000 square miles. Of this, 144,000,000 are water, 
and 62,900,000 are land ; that is, dividing the surface of 
the globe into a hundred parts, twenty-seven parts would 
be land and seventy-three water. But you interrupt mc 
with a question : " Is not this an enormous waste ? Would 
it not have been better had the proportion been reversed, 
so that, instead of the land's being one-fourth of the sur- 
face of the globe, it should have been three-fourths ? " 
But you forget the momentous part which the ocean plays 
in the economy of life. Absorbing and radiating heat 
less readily than land, the ocean, with its great marine 
cun-ents and tides, is the grand regulator of earth's cli- 
mates, without which regulation the land itself would soon 
become uninhabitable. Moreover : were it not for the im- 
mense extent of the ocean area, there would not be evap- 
orating surface enough to feed those aerial tanks which 
are needed to meet the constant enormous demand for 
rains and dews — a method of water supply absolutely in- 
dispensable to the fertility of the soil, and so to human 



104 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

life itself. Again : look at the breaking-iip of the surface 
of the lands into inequalities of mountain and yallej, high- 
land and plain. It is precisely this inequality of surface 
which tempers the action of the heat and the winds, and 
which makes possible the magniiicent river systems of the 
continents. Let the earth be but an unbroken table-land, 
and it would swiftly become an uninhabitable desert. 
Once more : look at the horizontal contour of the conti- 
nents, and observe what an immense factor this has been 
in the history of mankind. Look at Africa with its 
11,314,300 square miles, and 16,200 miles of coast-line. 
And then look at Europe, with its 3,565,200 square miles, 
and 19,800 miles of coast-line. Li other words, though 
Europe is three times smaller than Africa, yet it has 4,000 
more miles of sea-coast, Africa having but one mile of 
coast-line to every 896 square miles of area, while Europe, 
including her islands, has one mile of sea-coast to every 
143 square miles of surface. And now, which continent 
has produced the historic nations of the race : vast Africa, 
with its unbroken, comparatively short coast-line of 16,000 
miles, or little Europe, with its sinuous, comparatively vast 
coast-line of 20,000 miles, everywhere indented with pen- 
insulas and promontories and bays and harbors, and so in- 
viting the interplay of commerce and civilization ? Arc 
Greece and Italy and France and Germany and Great 
Britain in Africa, or in Europe ? Such are a few of the 
more remarkable features of Physical Geography. When 
we remember how very significant they are, and how pro- 
lific in momentous results : when we remember how pro- 
foundly and beneficently the seas affect the lands ; how 
immensely the ocean mitigates earth's climate ; how indis- 
pensable its vast surface is to the evaporation of water 
sufficient to supply the needed dews and rains and rivers 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 105 

and lakes and springs ; liow tlie relief of the continents — 
the range of their mountains and plateaus and lowlands — 
controls their drainage, and shapes their vast river systems 
and water-basins : when we remember that " the depres- 
sion of a few hundred feet, which w^ould make no change 
in the essential forms of the solid mass of the globe, would 
cause a great part of Asia and Europe to disappear beneath 
tlie waters of the ocean, and would reduce America to a 
few large islands," or that '' an elevation of 350 feet is 
sufficient to reduce the mean temperature of a place by 
one degree of Fahrenheit, that is to say, the effect is the 
same as if the place were situated seventy miles farther 
north : " when we remember that the effect of placing 
Italy and Greece in the north of Europe, instead of in the 
south, would be to turn them into Scandinavia or Kam- 
tchatka, or that the placing of Europe east of Asia, in- 
stead of west, would turn it into Siberia, or that the flow- 
ing of the Mississippi northward into the Arctic Ocean, 
instead of southward into the Mexican Gulf, would turn 
the larger part of the United States into a desert : when 
we remember that the very forms of the lands — their 
size, shape, elevation, relative position, indentation of 
coast-line, direction of mountain-range, and the like — de- 
termine the climate, the productions, the industries, the 
health, the habits, the civilization of each country : when 
we remember all this, we, too, may share in the Creator's 
delight, and with Him pronounce the gathering together 
of the waters and the appearing of the dry land very 
good. 

Such is the story of the Genesis of the Land. 

And now, what are the moral les- 

il. — Moral Mean- « ,, , ^ t -n x' 

f . , 04. £ons ot the story i 1 will mention 

ing of the Story. «^ 

two. 



106 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

And, first, the Birth of Individnal- 

vidudif '*^ ""^ ^''^'' ^^y- ^^^ observe the precise point at 
which we have arrived in these medita- 
tions on the Creative Week ; it is the point of differentia- 
tion, or division of forces. That we may conceive it more 
clearly, recall what has already been achieved : first, there 
was the creative origination of the elements of the uni- 
verse ont of nothing ; secondly, there was the formless, 
orderless, chaotic, night-clad abyss ; thirdly, there was the 
organizing Breath of God ; fourthly, there was the light 
of chemical activity ; fifthly, there was the dividing Ex- 
panse, separating as by a measureless, dome-shaped parti- 
tion the fluid mass into separate masses, so that Earth 
sweeps into view a distinct, independent globe ; and now, 
sixthly, there is the separation on the surface of the globe 
itself, the waters grouping themselves in the places ap- 
pointed for them, and the land areas emerging. Thus our 
passage carries out and intensifies the lesson already hinted 
in our last study : the great principle of Individualism. 
For individuality implies diversity, or rather unity, the 
unity consisting of diversities in equipoise or melody. For 
a unity is something more and higher than a bare unit. 
Consider for a moment the difference between them. A 
unit is a single one, surveyed externally, in isolation from 
other ones ; a unity is a single one, surveyed internally in 
its parts, each and every part being in mutual adjustment to 
a common end. A unit is a bare one ; a unity is many and 
different things in a state of oneness. A unit is one in the 
sense of numerical singleness ; a unity is one in the sense 
of harmonious pluralness. Thus a drop of water, when 
considered in distinction from other drops of water, is a 
unit ; but the same drop of water, when considered in its 
parts as made of eight weights of oxygen and one weight 



GEXE3IS OF THE LANDS. 107 

of hydrogen, is a unity. So tlie eartli of tlie Second Crea- 
tive Day, surveyed in distinction from the sun and planets, 
was a unit ; but the earth of the Third Creative Day, sur- 
veyed in itself, as a system of seas and lands poised in re- 
ciprocal activities, was a unity. So each member of a 
church, in distinction from other members, is a unit ; but 
the church, as a whole, composed of many members, all 
of whom are living in a state of oneness, is a unity. Be- 
hold, how good it is, and how pleasant, for brethren to 
dwell together in unity (Psalm cxxxiii. i) ! But unity imj^lies 
something more than harmonious variety of parts ; it im- 
j^lies the subordination of these various parts to a common 
end. It is this harmonious conspiracy of diverse parts to 
a common end which makes the parts, as a whole, a unity. 
Thus the separate parts in a marble quarry are not a unity ; 
they are only units ; but actually bring them together, and 
fit them together in due projDortion for the purpose of tem- 
ple service, and they become a unity. Apj)ly, now, these 
thoughts to that possible instance of culminating unity — a 
man. He is not all eye, or ear, or hand, or foot ; he is not 
all conscience, or reason, or sensibility, or will ; he is spirit 
and soul and body (i Thess. v. 23), each in mutual adjust- 
ment, and all in mutual cooperation for a common end, 
i. e., life. That is to say, he is an Individual. This is 
a term which you would never apply to a homogeneous 
substance, e. g., a stone. For as uniformity is a mark of 
the lowest stage of existence, so variety is a mark of the 
highest. As we ascend the scale of being, life becomes 
more complex and differenced. Indeed, one of the happiest 
definitions of life is tliis : " Life is the mutual exchanging of 
relations (Gutot)." How wonderfully life complicates and 
diversifies as, starting with the bioplast in the lowest forms 
of animal existence, we trace its ever multiplying differen- 



108 STUDIES IX THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tiations in the amoeba, the polyp, the clam, the spider, the 
salmon, the lizard, the eagle, the lion, Man ! Again, look- 
ing at man himself, contrast the child of barbarism and the 
child of civilization. How simple the wants of the savage ; 
how few and rude his implements ! — ^you might almost gath- 
er them on this platform. On the other hand, how diversi- 
fied the wants of the civilized man ; how numberless and 
complicated his implements! — -the Exhibition grounds of 
our glorious Centennial could not contain them. In brief, 
differentiation is the very condition of life. Everything 
grows by multiplication of organs and functions, and their 
consignment to specific ends. Development is by special- 
ization. How wonderfully this comes out in the growth 
of the germinating vesicle of the egg ! And the higher 
the grade of beings the more individualized as well as 
numerous its organs and functions. This, then, is the 
point to which our passage brings us ; it marks the begin- 
ning of the sense of Individuality. Beginning, I say. For 
the sense of individuality is not a sudden attainment. It is 
a process more or less slow. How happily the Laureate 
has described it, in lines as profound as musical ! 

" The baby new to earth and sky, 

What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 
Has never thought that ' this is I.' 

" But as he grows he gathers much, 
And learns the use of ' I ' and ' me,' 
And finds ' I am not what I see. 
And other than the things I touch.' 

" So rounds he to a separate mind. 

From whence clear memory may begin, 
As through the frame that binds him in. 
His isolation grows defined." — ("In Memoeiam," xli7.) 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 109 

In fact, it is this sense of individuality wljicli marks 
off man from the lower forms of life. Speaking accu- 
rately, you would never apply the term to a plant, or even 
an animal. And the higher the character, the more dif- 
ferenced and specialized it becomes : for, remember, de- 
velopment is by specialization ; moreover, it is this sj)ecial- 
ization which gives to each man his characteristic ; that is 
to say, his character. Peter, like John, and Paul, and 
everybody else, was a man. But to call him simply a 
man does not distinguish him from other men. Peter 
was an individualized man ; that is, as the old Schoolmen 
used to say, Peter had Peterness ; and it was this Peter- 
ness which constituted him not only a man, but also Peter- 
man. Great, then, is the hour when man wakes to the 
sense of his own individuality. Yea, happy the day when 
the Lord of man speaks to the chaos of thy soul, saying : 
" Let the waters under the heavens gather themselves to- 
gether into one place, and let the dry land appear ! " 
For observe the effectiveness of a duly grouped, coordi- 
nated man. How is it that the steam-engine, small com- 
pared with the mass it moves, is able to drive the mighty 
craft, with her ponderous cargo, in teeth of billow and 
tempest from continent to continent? It is not merely 
because it is made of iron and worked by the expansive 
power of steam ; it is also because piston and cylinder, 
beam and connecting-rod, crank and fly-wheel, valve and 
condenser, pump and governor, all work in reciprocal ad- 
justment and harmonious conspiracy to a common end, 
namely, to send the steamer across the Atlantic. But let 
some slight derangement of the machinery take place — 
some valve refuse to work, some cog interfere, some pin 
give way — and the engine, which was strong enough to 
send the Great Eastern speeding like a leviathan through 



110 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tlie billows, is hardly strong enongli to propel a tug across 
the Schuylkill. So it is with man. Let his heart be one 
with itself ; let it be a unity, as well as a unit ; let its seas 
of sensibility group themselves into their appointed places, 
and its lands of activity duly emerge ; in short, let him, 
like the Psalmist, praise his God with his whole heart ; 
and he will conquer in Time's G-reat Campaign. But let 
him have a disheveled heart ; let him halt between two 
opinions ; let him be a double-minded man, unstable in 
all his ways (James i. 8) ; and he will be swept before the 
breath of Apollyon as the withered leaf before the hurri- 
cane. Thrice happy, then, the day when the Lord of souls 
sets in peaceful equilibrium the chaos of thy soul ; when 
Conscience approves Desire, and Desire takes delight in 
Conscience ; when Duty and Inclination henceforth and 
for evermore walk in saintly twinship ; when Faith tempers 
Reason, and Eeason buttresses Faith ; when Imagination 
gives wing to Judgment, and Judgment guides Imagina- 
tion ; when Hope draws courage from Memory, and Mem- 
ory fortifies Hope ; wiien Humility soars into Confidence, 
and Confidence leans on Humility ; when Reverence 
chastens Joy, and Joy gladdens Reverence ; when every 
Faculty helps, and is helped by every other ; when all the 
ends are means, and all the means are ends ; when the 
whole nature is in very deed a Cooperative Society — every 
sensibility and power of the soul being evermore engaged 
in one and the same holy, blessed conspiracy, even the 
glory of its Maker and Saviour. Then shall the soul be 
indeed Jerusalem, City of Peace. O Lord of Love, and 
King of Beauty ! unite my heart, even now, that so my 
earthly life may be in very truth the prelude of my heav- 
enly song ! This, then, is the first lesson of our text : 
The Birth of Individuality, or a heart set in Unity. 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. HI 



The buiTit-offering that God loves is a whole burnt-of- 
fering. 

But our passage teaches a second, kin- 

2.— The Cirtli of , , , ^ ^ . ^ j- ^i n ^ 

j^^^ dred lesson, growing out oi the nrst. 

"" ^' It is this : The Birth of Duty. For 

each man is in himself a little world ; first, there is the 
night-mantled chaos of unregulated, unconscious powers ; 
next, there is the quickening, grouping, coordinating force 
of the Spirit of God ; next, there is the incandescent glow 
of nascent, tumultuous moral activity ; next, there is the 
awakening sense of the doming Expanse, or man's relation 
to God ; and next, there is the awakening sense of dis- 
tributed forces, or man's relation to man. For the indi- 
vidualization of each man is not so much for the man's 
own sake as for the sake of all men. Yes, brother, that 
is a mighty hour in your life when you awake for the first 
time to the sense of the truth that there are others in the 
world besides yourself. And this is impossible except it 
comes to you through sense of separation, segmentation, 
isolation, individualization ; even as 

" the past will always win 
A glory from its being far, 
And orb into the perfect star 

We saw not when we moved therein." 

— (" In Memoeiam," xxix.) 

And with this sense of individuality begins the sense 
of responsibility, the sense of duty, the sense of self-sacri- 
fice ; in a single word, the sense of Manhood, Ay, great 
is the hour when we awake to the sense of Humanity. 

*' 'Tis the sublime of man, 
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves 
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole ! 



112 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

9 

This fraternizes man, this constitutes 

Our charities and bearings."— (S. T. Coleeidge.) 

You see how broadly the field opens. 
_ «•— ^ ^^° - In fact, the text takes us into the very 
heart of the Christian Religion. Even 
the great Comte, in whose elaborate system of religion the 
Worship of Humanity lies as the corner-stone, discerned, 
as though from afar, this splendid truth ; for he taught 
that the key to social regeneration is to be found in what 
he called Altruism, or the victory of the sympathetic in- 
stincts over self-love. Would to God that the scales had 
fallen from his eyes, and that he had recognized in the al- 
together lovely One of ITazareth and Calvary the true, 
infinite Altruist ! For Christianity, bearing the name of 
her Founder, Christ, has, on the one hand, nothing in com- 
mon with the spirit of a selfish monasticism ; she files the 
desert and the cloister, to nestle in the family and brood 
over the market-place. And, on the other hand, Christi- 
anity has nothing in common with the spirit of a selfish 
communism; instead of saying with the socialist, "All 
thine is mine," she says, with her Founder, " All mine is 
thine." Christianity's characteristic motto, distinguishing 
her from all other religions and philosophies, is this : " We 
are members one of another " (Eph. iy. 25). Modern Sociol- 
ogy juts out into the sea of Time two opposite promon- 
tories : the promontory of Yolatilization, or the dispersion 
of the individual into the community, and the promontory 
of Solidification, or the concentration of the community into 
the individual. Rome, alike the ancient imperial and the 
modern pontifical, represents the former extreme, dissipat- 
ing the personal into the general. France, with her ideal 
notions of communism, represents the latter extreme, con- 
densing the general into the personal. The Church of the 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 113 

living God, as answering to the Ideal of lier Divine Found- 
er and Head, is blending the two extremes, evermore say- 
ing : " We are members of one another." Hence she has 
lessons for all classes and conditions of men, and this al- 
ways with reference to one another. To the Husband, she 
says : " Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
the church, and gave Himself for her" (Eph. v. 22). To 
the Wife, she says : " Wives, submit yourselves to your 
own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord" (Col. iii. 18). To the 
Father, she says : " Fathers, provoke not your children to 
wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord " (Eph. vi. 4). To the Child, she says : " Chil- 
dren, obey your parents in all things in the Lord: for 
this is wxll pleasing unto Him " (Col. iii. 20). To the Em- 
ployer, she says : " Masters, give to your servants that 
which is just and equal, forbearing threatening, knowing 
that ye also have a Master in heaven, and that there is 
no respect of persons with Him " (Col. iv. 1). To the Em- 
ploye, she says : " Servants, obey your masters accord- 
ing to the flesh, not wdth eye-service as men-pleasers, but in 
singleness of heart, fearing the Lord " (Col. iii. 22). To the 
Ruler, she says : " Be wise, ye kings ; be instructed, ye 
judges of the earth (Psalm ii. 10) : judge righteously, plead 
the cause of the poor and needy " (rror. xxxi, 9). To the 
Euled, she says : " Citizens, submit yourselves to every 
ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake ; whether it be to 
the king, as supreme, or to governors, as being sent by 
him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise 
of them that do well " (i Peter ii. 13). To the Nations, she 
says : " J^ations, beat your swords into ploughshares, your 
spears into pruning-hooks, lift not up the sword against 
each other, learn war no more " (Is. ii. 4). To all man- 
kind, she says : " Honor all : love the Brotherhood : fear 



114 rUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

God : honor tlie King " (i Peter ii. 17). In short, she teaches 
that each individual exists for the total, even as each mem- 
ber exists for the body. And how admirably she teaches 
it ! Listen to a classic paragraph from the writings of that 
Apostle who penetrated most deeply into the Genius of 
Christianity, and felt most pressingly its power, a para- 
graph singularly pertinent to the lesson of the hour : '' The 
body is not one member, but many. If the foot should 
say, ^ Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body,' 
is it therefore not of the body ? And if the ear should 
say, ' Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,' is it 
therefore not of the body ? If the whole body were an 
eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were 
hearing, where would be the smelling ? But now God hath 
set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it hath 
pleased Him. And if they were all one member, where 
would be the body ? But now there are many members, 
yet but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ' I 
have no need of thee ; ' nor again the head to the feet, ' I 
have no need of you.' ISfay, still more, those members of 
the body which seem to be feeble are necessary ; and those 
which we think to be the less honorable parts of the body, 
upon these we bestow more abundant honor ; and our 
uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness, for our 
comely parts have no need. But God hath tempered the 
body together, having given more abundant honor to the 
part which lacked, that there may be no schism in the 
body, but that the members may have the same care, one 
for another ; and if one member suffereth, all the members 
suffer with it ; or if one member is honored, all the mem- 
bers rejoice with it" (i Cor. xU. 14-26). It is the Creator- 
Kedeemer's redistribution of the Seas and the Lands on 
the planet of His Church. 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 115 

&.— The Spirit's Al- And with tliis fact of personal in- 
lotment. dividualization for the sake of the com- 

mon weal, beautifully agrees St. Paul's doctrine of the 
Charisms or Spiritual Gifts. Listen to him again : " Now, 
there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ; and 
there are diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord ; 
and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same 
God who worketh all in all. But to each one is given 
the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all. For 
to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom ; and 
to another a word of knowledge, according to the same 
Spirit ; and to another faith, by the same Spirit ; and to 
another gifts of healing, by the same Spirit ; and to another 
working of miracles ; and to another prophecy ; and to an- 
other discernment of spirits ; and to another divers kinds of 
tongues ; and to another interpretation of tongues. But all 
these worketh the one and self -same Spirit, distributing to 
each one severally as Lie willeth " (i Cor. xii. 4-1 1). Friends, 
is not all this true ? Look around you on Christian Society 
as it actually is. Do all have the same gifts ? Are all apos- 
tles ? Are all prophets ? Are all teachers ? Are all workers 
of miracles ? Have all gifts of healing ? Do all speak 
with tongues ? Do all interpret (i Cor. xii. 29, so) ? Yerily, 
the one and self -same Spirit doth allot to each one severally 
as He willeth. Yes, there is the great, indiscriminate, 
monotonous ocean of the Church at large, the obscure por- 
tion of its membership always in the vast majority ; never- 
theless, evermore tempering Humanity's climate ; evermore 
evaporating in clouds of incense and aspiration and en- 
treaty ; evermore coming down again on the thirsty world 
in rains of benediction and dews of grace. And there are 
the islands of Christian genius, flecking here and there the 
immense, indiscriminate deep, sometimes verdant, some- 



116 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

times rock J, always impressive because isolated and solitary. 
And tliere are the vast continents of the denominations ; 
the countless valleys and modest lowlands luxuriant with 
the prayers and examples of Christ's obscure ones; the 
bubbling springs and winding rills and leaping brooks 
and rushing rivers rich in fertilizing charities ; the many 
deserts of false profession, ever and anon green and fra- 
grant with oases of Christian character and deed ; the 
broad table-lands golden with the harvests of the Chris- 
tian ricli and influential ; the lofty mountain-ranges radiant 
with sacred theologians and holy orators ; the very vol- 
canoes lurid w^ith an Elijah and a John the Baptist, a Luther 
and a Moody. Even the very sands themselves have their 
blessed part to play. What King Canute, enthroned by 
the seaside, could not do, Jehovah, our God, has ever 
been doing. 

" Will ye not fear Me, saith the Lord ? 
Will ye not tremble at My presence? 
Wbo have appointed the sand as a bound to tbe sea, 
A perpetual barrier, which it cannot pass ? 
Though the waters thereof toss themselves, they do not prevail. 
Though they roar, they cannot pass over it." — (Jeeemiah iv. 22.) 

"What, then, is the lesson at this point of discourse ? 
Simply this : Cheerfully use your own gift in the place 
appointed for you, and cheerfully recognize the gifts of 
others in the places appointed for them. Llaving, then, 
gifts differing according to the grace given us, whether 
prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of 
the faith ; or ministry, let us w^ait on our ministering ; or 
he that teacheth, on his teaching ; or he that exhorteth, 
on his exhortation (Rom. xii. 6-8). Ay, on earth, not less 
than in heaven, the Father's house hath many mansions 

(John xiv. 2). 



GENESIS OF THE LANDS. 117 

Our Text the Com- "^^^^^ ^^^^* *^^^ ^^ ^^^® Complement of 
plement of our Last, onr last : The doming Heavens gave us 
God : the Emerging Lands give us Man. 
Of what use is it to evaporate into the cloud, if the cloud 
does not condense into the rain ? That text said : Upward ! 
This text says : Forward ! And, practically speaking, the 
moral life blends the two directions into an ascending di- 
agonal, soaring aslant even as does the bird. The arching 
sky awakens the sense of Divine Fatherhood : and so we 
say — Heavenly Father. The distribution of Sea and Land 
awakens the sense of Human Brotherhood : and so we say 
— Our Heavenly Father. And the higher our zenith, the 
broader our horizon. Here is the key to the story of St. 
Paul : he soared very high — therefore, he saw very far : 
he saw very far — therefore, he was apostle to the Gentiles. 
Alas, how different are most other lives : nothing but stag- 
nant, malarial pools, without a solitary islet or even rock 
to relieve the dreary waste ! Ah, here is Life's great battle, 
the Duel of the 1 and the N'ot-I. Christianity reverses the 
doctrine of IS'atural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest. 
Instead of crushing out the feebler, she instinctively selects 
them for her special care, bestowing upon the less honor- 
able parts of the body more abundant honor ; so that our 
uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness (i Cor. xii. 
22-24). May God give you and me gi-ace evermore to do 
to others as He evermore does to us ! So shall each of us 
find this great fact of Individuality a boon and not a curse 
on that approaching Day of Judgment when every one of 
us must give account of himself to God. 

. „ This, then, is the stirring: thouncht of 

A Summary. o o 

the hour : Individualization for the sake 
of Mankind. Go forth then, brother, inspired with the 
majestic thought that you are a Personal L^nit — a man 



118 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

among men — individualized from the mass of Humanity 
for the sake of Humanity and Humanity's King. Yes, 
happy the day, let me again say it, when God says to thee : 
" Let the waters gather themselves to one place, and let the 
dry land appear." Thrice happy the day when thou obey- 
est, looking upward to the opening Heavens and outward 
to the broadening Horizon. This, then, is the twofold 
lesson of the day. " Hear, O Israel ! The Lord our God 
is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
and with all thy strength : this is the first and great Com- 
mandment. And the second is like unto it, namely this : 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two 
commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets " (Matt. 

xii. 34-40). 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE YII. 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 



"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yield- 
ing seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed 
is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so. And the earth brought 
forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yield- 
ing fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind : and God saw that 
it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day." 
— Genesis i. 11-13. 

As is our wont in tliese studies, let lis attend, first, to 
tlie Explanation of the Passage, and, secondly, to its Moral 
Lessons. 

I. — Explanation And, ' first, tlie Explanation of tlie 
of the Passage. Passage. 

To this end, let us again stand with 

1. -Panorama of ^j^^ S^cYod Seer on his Mount of Pano- 
r^ing an s. ^^^^^^ Yision. What though the Breath 
of God has been moving over the face of the fluids, or- 
ganizing the chaotic universe ? "What though the light of 
chemical activity has lighted up the Cimmerian Abyss ? 
What though the sky, gliding in and arching through the 
fluid mass, has separated the Earth into an independent 
globe ? What though the sea has received its bounds, and 
the mountains tower, and the lowlands spread, and the 
rivers flow ? All is still a lifeless waste — no germ, no liv- 
ing thing exists. From pole to pole nothing is seen but 



120 STUDIES IN THE CKEATIVE WEEK. 

surging billows and dull-brown soil and naked adamantine 
rock. And now sounds again the Deific Word : " God said : 
' Let tlie eartb bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and 
the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in 
itself, above the earth.' " And, lo, it is so. On all sides 
spring up, as though by magic, the floating algae, the cir- 
cling lichens, the luxuriant mosses, the branching ferns, 
the waving grasses, the graceful palms, the kingly -cedars, 
the iris-hued flowers. And a blessed vision it is : this 
grateful exchange of dull uniformity and barren naked- 
ness for vegetable colors — for carpets of emerald, and 
tapestries of white and azure and crimson and orange and 
purple. Even the God of beauty Himself feels that it is 
good. And there is evening and there is morning, a Third 
Day. Such is the Vision of the Birth of Vegetation. And 
now let us dwell on it somewhat in detail. 

" And God said : ' Let the earth put 

2.— The Birth of . ,, , , , . , , \ . 

"Lj^g lorth shoots, sprout, germmate : ' and it 

was so." It was the first appearance of 
that mysterious thing which we call Life. How shall we 
account for its introduction ? ^N^aturally or super naturally ? 
Spontaneously or executively ? Atheistically or Divinely ? 
Observe what the precise question is. I am not speak- 
ing now of transmitted life, the life by inheritance from 
ancestors. I am speaking of the first Life, the Life of that 
primal, original Plant which existed before it yielded its 
first seed. Whence came that original first Life ? Did it 
originate itself, spontaneously evolving itself from blind, 
dead matter and force ? Here is the colliding point be- 
tween atheist and theist. Observe what the exact problem 
is. All living beings, alike plants and animals, are essen- 
tially composed of four chemical elements — carbon, hydro- 
gen, oxygen, and nitrogen — combined in proportions vary- 



GENESIS OF THE TLANTS. ' 121 

ing with the character of the living substance. Suj^pose, 
now, yon take into your laboratory these four elements in 
whatever quantities you please, and combine them in what- 
ever proportions you please. Can you make out of these 
four elements a single drop of blood, a solitary microscopic 
diatom ? Here, then, is the problem. There has been a 
time in the history of the globe, so geologists tell us, w^hen 
there w^as not in existence a single living thing. But car- 
bon and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen were there. 
All at once there sprung up in earth's virgin soil a combi- 
nation of these elements in the living form of a blade of 
grass. AYhat now was the new subtile force which turned 
that dead carbon and dead hydrogen and dead oxygen and 
dead nitrogen into this living thing which we call a Plant ? 
"Whence came that original first Life ? The answer to this 
question marks the boundary-line between theism and athe- 
ism, between plan and chance, between personal will and 
impersonal law, between first cause and eternal necessity, 
between God and zero. Whence, then, came that first 
Life ? Is there any better answer, any answer more pro- 
foundly philosophical or gloriously satisfying, than the 
childlike answer of the far-off, hoary witness of the Crea- 
tion Panorama ? " God said : ' Let the earth bring forth 
grass.' God said : ' Let the waters swarm with the mov- 
ing creature that hath life.' God said : ' Let fowl fly 
above the eai-th in the expanse of heaven.' God said : 
' Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his 
kind.'" This "God said," this Eternal Word, Who in 
the beginning was with God and was God (John i. i) : this 
" God said " of Moses and " God Word " of John— this it 
was Who on the Third Day spoke life-givingly, germinat- 
ingly, spermatically ; and, lo, in a way perhaps forever 
inscrutable to us, the Immaterial took on itself the mate- 
6 



122 STUDIES IN THE CEEATIVE WEEK. 

rial, the Invisible swathed itself with the visible — the Life 
organized itself into the body. 

" And God said : ' Let the earth 
Tir /~ -p ^1 ii ! Piit forth shoots : ' and the earth did 

Matrix of the Plant. ^ 

put forth shoots." Are we to under- 
stand these words literally ? Manifestly not. Remember 
that in studying these Creation Archives w^e are moving, 
not in the region of philosophical statements, but of pic- 
torial ; not in the realm of science, but of panorama. The 
Sacred Chronicler is using language popularly, just as we 
ourselves use it in this very matter of the soil's produc- 
tiveness. Yery scientific although we are, yet do we not 
to this day talk of the soil as though it were a living thing 
and bringing forth fruit of itself, using such words as pro- 
ductive, teeming, fruitful, exuberant ? And just because 
the soil does seem to bring forth plants as though they 
were her own offspring, there is everywhere, alike among 
savages and among sages, a sort of idolatry of the soil as 
being Mother !N"ature. And yet we know better. "We 
know that the soil is not the source of vegetation, it is 
only its sphere ; it is not the sire of the plant, it is only its 
matrix. Nevertheless it is quite proper, using the language 
of phenomenon, to speak of the earth as bringing forth 
grass and herb and tree. Nobody but the willfully unfair 
can misunderstand the Sacred Reciter here. 

" And God said : ' Let the earth put 
4-'|Fruit after its ^^^.^^ g|^^^^g^ ^1^^ ^^^j^ yielding seed, the 

fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, 
whose seed is in itself.' And the earth brought forth 
shoots, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree 
yielding fruit, in which is its seed, after its kind." Dwell 
for a moment on these profound phrases : " Fruit after its 
kind, whose seed is in itself : " phrases which, in light of 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 123 

tlie modern discussion toiicliing the Origin of Species, are 
profounder than ever. Observe, first, what an immense 
advance in the career of Creation is marked by these 
phrases : " whose seed is in itself, yielding fruit after its 
kind." These are expressions you would never apply to 
anything inorganic, e. g., a mountain, a bowlder, a molecule, 
an atom. It is only to living things, which do have seed 
in themselves, and which do yield fruit after their kinds, 
that you apply these expressions. Accordingly, these 
phrases mark the eternal boundary between the organic 
Avorld and the inorganic ; between life and absence of life. 
Again : observe how strikingly these phrases : " yielding 
fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself : " involve the 
doctrine of the Invariability of Species. " Ah, but this 
doctrine," you tell me, "is stoutly contested in these days." 
It is a proper point, then, to arrest our steps, and glance 
at the modern Hypothesis of Evolution. At the very 
outset, then, let it be remarked that clearness of conception 
here is absolutely essential. For it is quite astonishing to 
notice how loosely many intelligent persons use such words 
as " species, variety, development, evolution," etc. In the 
first place, look at the word " Species." A Species is a 
purely subjective thing, an Ens rationis, a mental out- 
line, an ideal paddock. Who ever saw or touched a 
species ? To talk, then, of the Origin or Transmutation 
of Species is to talk of a subjective, ideal thing, which 
never has had, and never can have, any actual, objective 
existence in the world of matter. If there is ever any 
'• transmutation," the transmutation is a concept existing 
solely in the mind of the conceiver. In otlier words, the 
affair is an affair of metaphysics, not of physics. Here, 
as elsewhere in such matters, let us abide by the glorious 
rigor of the scientific method. Physical Science, we are 



124 STUDIES IN TKS CREATIVE WEEK. 

proTidlj told, deals only with objective, concrete realities ; 
it lias nothing to do with abstractions or concepts ; not but 
that concepts or abstract terms are useful, and even indispen- 
sable, as tools, or " working hypotheses." And with con- 
cepts as such — i. e., with abstract terms as instruments of 
thought and investigation — Physical Science does have to 
do. ^Nevertheless, concepts are not objective existences ; 
abstract terms are not concrete realities. And " Species " 
is an abstract term, or concept. Accordingly, the only 
evolution or transmutation which Physical Science, as an 
affair of observation and induction, can consistently con- 
sider, is the evolution or transmutation of an objective, 
concrete, definite plant or animal. And precisely here, 
where the proof should be decisive, is the weak point in 
the Hypothesis of Evolution. And no chain is stronger 
than its weakest link. Again : look at the word " Evolu- 
tion." It is another lamentable instance of the loose use 
of terms. To evolve is to unroll, unfold, develop. But 
you cannot unroll what was not inrolled ; you cannot un- 
fold what was not infolded ; you cannot develop what was 
not enveloped. And yet these exact Gentlemen of the Bal- 
ance and Micrometer confound unroUment with transition, 
development with transmutation. And just because these 
exact gentlemen use terms so inexactly, it happens that 
the term " Evolution " has become a very Shibboleth and 
Ariadne clew. Enough that we oracularly pronounce the 
word " Evolution," and we imagine that we have the " Open 
Sesame," and have explained everything. Again I insist 
on the rigor of the scientific method. You cannot unroll 
what was not inrolled. Evolution not only implies in- 
volution, it also implies that the involution is equal to 
the evolution. You cannot evolve a pound out of an 
ounce. Here is the reason why, in the Lecture on the 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 125 

Genesis of the Universe, I persisted in endeavoring to sliow 
that the doctrine of Germs does not account for the 
weight of the Universe. The thing to account for is not 
the size or the shape — the thing to account for is the weight. 
If the Universe has been evolved from a few germs, and 
from nothing else, th^n the weight of the germs must be 
equal to the weight of the Universe. You cannot extract 
a ton out of a kilogramme. If a definite plant is devel- 
oped into another, if a specific animal is evolved into an- 
other, then the two plants, the two animals, are equiva- 
lents in weight. If the diatom is developed, however 
slow and indirectly, into the cedar — if the amoeba is 
evolved, however gradually and intermediately, into the 
elephant — then the diatom must weigh as much as the cedar, 
the amoeba must be as heavy as the elephant. We propose 
to be scientific ; and therefore we subject the Hypothesis 
of Evolution to the scientist's peculiar, decisive test — the 
test of the Scales. IN^evertheless, there is a sense in which 
I must accept the doctrine of Evolution. It is in the origi- 
nal, etymological sense, viz., unrolling. I believe that the 
Process of Creation was the unrolling of a Divine Plan 
or Concei^tion. In this sense of the word, and it is the 
primary, fair sense, I am proud to confess myself an 
Evolutionist. " Premeditation prior to Creation : " this is 
the favorite formula of Louis Agassiz in his famous Essay 
on Classification. I believe that the story of " The Crea- 
tive Week " is the story of the unfolding of a Divine 
Plan or Idea, ascending from the creation of matter- 
atoms, along the pathway of soil, and plant, and animal, to 
Man. In the very attempt of the Evolutionists to estab- 
lish the hypothesis of physical development, there is an 
unconscious, powerful tribute to the Mosaic doctrine of 
Evolution ; that is to say, the doctrine of the unrolling of 



126 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

a Divine Plan or Idea. The advance may have been, and 
in many cases probably was, genetic ; bnt the advance, in 
so far as it was an " evolution," was ideal. And not only 
is Evolution, in this and the proper sense of the term, true 
of the Creative Process ; it is also tnie of every living 
thing to-day, whether plant or animal? The acorn unfolds 
into the oak, the babe into the man, along the ideal axis of 
a Divine thought or plan. The growth is indeed an evo- 
lution, but the evolution is not a physical development or 
unfolding; the growth is the physical accretion of sub- 
stance from without, along the ideal axis of a conception 
or scheme. In fact, it is this ideal evolution, not the physi- 
cal expansion or the community of substances, which is the 
secret of the identity of acorn and oak. And the thing 
for the physical evolutionist to account for is this : the 
weight of the oak, the immense preponderance of which 
was never in the acorn. Evolution, in the sense of physi- 
cal, objective unfolding of protoplast into Man, is false. 
Evolution, in the sense of ideal, purposeful unfolding of 
protoplast into Man, is true. And Science has it for her 
lofty vocation to endeavor to read the Creator's thoughts 
before they are materialized into things.' 

1 Since delivering this Lecture, I have received from my esteemed friend, the Eev. Dr. 
S. S. Cutting, some verses, written by him, which felicitously express this thought, ard 
which, by his permission, I incorporate in this volume : 

SCIENCE. 

Ere, from the gloom of cycling night, 
Earth woke, and knew the dawning light ; 
Ere from old Chaos order sprung, 
And music through the ether rung ; — 

In Thee, O one Eternal Mind, 
Dwelt Laws which worlds in order bind, 
All Forms of Beauty,— Love's Delight,— 
All Eeason,— all Unchanging Eight. 

In earth and heaven, the "Wonder wrought 
Is Evolution from Thy Thought ; 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 127 

But, returning to tlie point under immediate discus- 
sion, let us observe precisely wliat tlie Sacred Chronicler 
declares. He declares that tlie tree, whose seed is in it- 
self, yields fruit after its kind. And in thus declaring, 
he virtually asserts the Invariability of what we call " Spe- 
cies." ]^ot that he consciously conceived this doctrine. 
But he was an observer, and, being an observer, the rec- 
ord of his observations is, of course, scientific. And this 
matter of the invariability of vegetable species is as ti*ue 
to-day as it was in the days of the ancient Witness of Cre- 
ation's Panorama. The tree, whose seed is in itself, still 
yields fruit after its kind. As in the days of the Naza- 
rene Teacher, so now : every tree is known by its own 
fruit; no sooner now than then do men go to thorns to 
gather figs, or to a bramble-bush to gather grapes (Luke vi. 44). 
" And God saw that it was good." 
Vcf-'ctaiioir '^"^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ might the Creator delight in 
the Birth of His Plants. Ponder for a 
moment the immense and blessed part which vegetation 
plays in the economy of daily Inmian life. In the first 
place. Plants are the source of all our food : directly, as in 
vegetable diet — e. g., bread, which we call tlie " Staff of 
Life ; " and indirectly, as in animal diet — these animals 
themselves having been fed on the vegetable world. An- 
nihilate plants, and where is food ? Annihilate food, and 
where is man ? Again : vegetation is the grand means of 
atmospheric purification. The countless living creatures 
of earth, human and animal, are ceaselessly inhaling from 

Tho Totence of Creative Skill 
la sovereign fiat of Thy Will;— 

And Science, thence, Thy works to know; — 
That upward stopping, patient, slow, 
The reverent mind may find in Thee 
Creation in its Prophjcy. 



128 UDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the air its life-sustaining oxygen, and as ceaselessly exhaling 
into the air the death-dealing carbonic oxide. The vege- 
table world mercifully reverses the respiratory process : 
ceaselessly inhaling the deadly carbonic oxide, as ceaseless- 
ly exhaling the life-snstaining oxygen. Annihilate plants, 
and man and animal speedily suffocate. Thus, vegetation 
is alike life's grand compensating balance, evermore main- 
taining the needed atmospheric equilibrium, and also life's 
grand storehouse, evermore supplying animal existence 
with its indispensables of air and food. What the ancient 
Gibeonite was to the ancient Israelite, that the Plant is 
to Man : it is his hewer of wood and drawer of water. 
It is more than the ancient Gibeonite : it keeps him from 
ceasing to be a man, and sinking into a clod. And just 
here, as I pass on, let me speak a word in behalf of the 
primeval forests. They are an essential part of the vital 
economy of the nation, serving, not only as its great lungs, 
but also as one of the essential conditions of the permanent 
productiveness of the soil. Witness the fertility of wooded 
Lombardy. Witness the sterility of woodless Palestine. 
Foster, then, the blessed woods of our loved America ! 
Girdle not, O hunter, that hemlock for thy camp ! Pire 
not, O thoughtless vacationist, that curling birch ! 

" O, Woodman, spare that tree ! " 

Once more : The vegetable world is a never-ending 
source of aesthetic delight. The two great occasions and 
conditions of physical beauty are figure and color. The 
Plants, in their infinitely varied range from diatom to 
cedar, illustrate every conceivable line of figure, every 
conceivable hue of color. Their ravishing song ranges 
through the whole scale of possible figures, through the 
whole gamut of possible hues. They are not only minis- 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 129 

trants to a transient pleasure, they arc also witnesses to an 
eternal Beauty. 

" Were I, O God, in cliurchless lands remaining, 
Far from all voice of teachers or divines, 
My soul would find, in flowers of Thy ordaining, 

Priests, sermons, shrines! " — (IIoeace Smith.) 

Remembering, tlien, this threefold ministry of vegetation, 
tirelessly serving humanity as the gracious ministrant of 
daily food and vital equilibrium and exhaustless beauty, 
we, too, may share in the Creator's delight, and with Him 
pronounce the advent of the Plants very good. 

" And there was evening and there 
6.-I11.C Third Day ^^^^^ j^orniug, a Third Day." Momen- 

a Day of Providence. /^ /. -t-» ^^ 

tous and lull oi Jrrovidence m very 
deed have been the events of the Third Day. First, there 
has been the Creator's distribution of Land and Water : 
the seas, islands, continents, mountains, taking their ap- 
pointed places. And, secondly, the earth has received from 
her Maker and Lord her iridescent mantle of flora. But 
these events were not their own end. Sublime as was the 
retreat of the Seas and the emergence of the Lands ; ex- 
quisite as were the springing up of the ferns, the towering 
of the oaks, the flowering of the roses, the fruiting of the 
vines — these splendid events were something more than 
the brilliant exhibition of the Creator's power and skill. 
They were prophetic of something immensely greater than 
themselves, even the Coming Man. For, on that far-off 
Third Day, earth became a mighty storehouse for supply- 
ing the wants of the myriads on myriads of coming hu- 
manity. On that day of the Emerging Lands it became 
j)ossiblc for man to obtain from the mountains and river- 
beds and subterranean depths those precious stones on 
which he loves to feast his eyes ; better still, those miner- 



130 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

als and metals whicli are more precious than any gem — 
clay and gravel and copper and iron and silver and gold 
and soil. On that day of tlie Birtli of Vegetation were 
deposited and compressed those colossal coal-beds which to 
this day furnish to the civilized world the chief generat- 
ing power of its mechanical activities. You love to talk 
of Divine Providence. I know no sublimer instance of 
Divine Providence than the work of that far-off Third 
Day. In those emerging lands and in that emeralding 
soil I read the legend of One Who not only created, but 
Who also foresaw, even Him Who was the Creator — 
Provider. Oh, how those miss the meaning of JSTature 
who think of those ancient deposits of coal as but the is- 
sue of accident, or, at most, of impersonal, bhnd, goalless 
law ! Yes, it is one thing to describe [Rature : that the 
atheist may do, and this with the precision of a microme- 
ter ; but even then he speaks but a little fragment of the 
truth. It is another and vastly larger thing to interpret 
Nature : that no one can do who does not believe in a pur- 
poseful God — that is to say, a Providential Creator. 
Such is the Story of the Genesis of the Plants. 
II.— Moral Mean- And now let us attend to the Moral 
ing of the Story. Meaning of the Story. 

Observe then, first : The Plant is a 

1. — The Plant a -, ,./» i -, i ,i 

Prophet of Man. heautiful emblem, or, rather, a pro- 
phetic type, of Man himself. The 
analogies between plants and animals — not, indeed, in re- 
spect to figure, but in respect to life — are manifold and 
striking. To start with the very first step, the beginning 
of life : so similar are the elementary, initial cells of the 
plant and the animal that, under the most detective micro- 
scope hitherto at command, it is impossible to say which is 
the plant and which the animal. And though, when the 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 131 

cells begin to qnicken and difterentiate, the divergence 
speedily becomes very marked, yet the phenomena of 
plant-life do in many respects wonderfully resemble the 
phenomena of animal-life. How naturally we apply to 
them both such physiological expressions as embryo, quick- 
ening, growing, feeding, absorbing, assimilating, circulat- 
ing, secreting, breathing, sleeping, propagating, dying, re- 
viving ! Look at this little seed. See how mysteriously its 
embryo quickens and unfolds ; how vigorously it bursts its 
envelope ; how instinctively it sends its root downward and 
its stem upward ; how greedily it takes in its appropriate 
food ; how skillfully, like a very chemist, it elaborates its 
nourishment ; how deftly it lays away the right substance 
in the right spot ; how sagaciously it arranges and spreads 
its leaves for light and air and wet ; how lovingly it clings 
as it aspiringly climbs ; how joyously it blossoms ; how 
far-sightedly its propagative apparatus makes provision for 
the future ; how nervously, as in the sensitive plant, it 
shrinks from injury ; how humanly it dies ; how humanly 
it puts forth its spring leaves. Yerily, it seems to be a liv- 
ing person, self-conscious and self -regulating. And yet it 
is not. It is in this matter only a parable. It is a picture 
of the human soul. That, too, quickens, unfolds, feeds, 
assimilates, breathes, sleeps, awakes, blossoms, fiaiits, fades, 
dies, revives. Yes, profound is the lesson taught us by 
the phenomena of vegetation. The tree without us is an 
emblem of the Tree within. 

" Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
Hold 70U here, root and all, in my hand : 
Little flower, but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and Man is." — (Texnyson.) 



132 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

'No wonder, then, that Holy Scripture, written by the same 
Divine finger that has written the Scripture of l^ature, is 
rich in Georgics, or Plant-parables.^ All Holy Scripture 
is verdured with the emerald tint of the Third Day. 

Secondly : The Birth of Powers. In 
2.— The Birth of studying this lesson let us keep within 
Powers, the landmarks indicated in our passage 

itself. 

And, first, the Parable of Germina- 

of Ge^Inlor'''^^' ^^^^ * " ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ shoots." 

To the thoughtful man there is some- 
thing inexpressibly marvelous in the quickening of a seed. 
Look at this tiny acorn. Little sign does it give of the 
vital energy with which it is instinct. The costly, flashing 
diamond is more promising. But plant that diamond: 
plant it most carefully in soil the richest, under skies and 
conditions the most genial. Let your descendants ten 
thousand years hence — if, indeed, the world shall be stand- 
ing — visit the spot. No dazzling tree is there, flashing 
with unnumbered, jeweled leaves. Let him carefully re- 
move the soil : and there, in the silence and dampness and 
darkness, he will flnd just what you had planted, nothing 
more— an unchanged, cold, dead diamond. An autumn 
wind sweeps through the forest, shaking every twig and 
bough. A little, brown, seemingly dead acorn falls to the 
ground. The foot of the browsing deer presses it beneath 
the soil. There it lies in its grave, an unnoticed thing, 
silent and motionless as the pebbles sepulchred around it. 
But the germ of a giant life is in it : for the vernal days 
come again, and the finger of the Unsleeping One touches 

1 Psalm cxxvi. 5, 6. Is. xi. 1 : xxxv. 1. Hosea xiv. 5-7. Matt. vi. 28-30 ; vii. 16-20; 
ix. 37, 38 ; xiii. 18-23, 24-30, 31-33 ; xxiv. 32-34. Mark iv. 26-29. Luke xiii. 6-9. John iv. 
35-38 ; xii. 24 ; xv. 1-8. Kom. xi. 16-24. 1 Cor. xv. 35-44. Gal. vi. 7-9. Heb. vi. 7, 8. 
1 Peter i. 23. Eev. xxii. 2. 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 133 

its secret spring, and, lo ! the little brown nut germinates, 
and swells, and bursts its husk, and sends down its tiny 
radicle, and sends up its tiny shoot, and grows strong, and 
sets aside the bowlder which obstructs the pathway of its 
ascending doom, and a hundred years from now it rears its 
kingly head amid the storms, and from its stalwart and 
surging arms and quivering finger-tips it drops dow^n a 
thousand infant acorns to become the sires of countless 
glorious oaks in the far-off ages, it may be, yet to come. 
Friends, it is a parable of the Human Soul. 

" For nature, crescent, does not grow alone 
In thews, and bnik ; but, as this temple waxes. 
The inward service of the mind and soul 
Grows wide withal."^" Hamlet," Act I., Scene 3.) 

Tiny, doubtless, the soul is that lies infolded in the little 
framework of yonder sleeping infant : but the force of a 
giant life lies coiled up in it. In that little soul lie in- 
folded potentially all ranges of moral greatness, all sj)len- 
dors of spiritual beauty, all majesties of saintly experience, 
all heights of beatific glory, all exuberance of celestial har- 
vest — and all this forever augmenting, with the cumulative 
momentum of immortality, throughout the eternal cycles. 
Yea, when the favorable conditions come, when the Spirit 
of God breathes into this little chaotic soul His own vital- 
izing energy, this Seed of the Kingdom, though now" it 
may be among the littlest of seeds, grows into the greatest 
of trees, towering into the heaven of heavens, so that 
tlie very angels of God, who excel in strength, love to 
alight among its branches and lodge in the shadow thereof 

(Matt. xiii. 31, 32). 

Secondly : The Parable of Evolu- 

of Evolution ^^^^^ *^^^ * " "^^^ *^^^ ^^^^^ yield seed after its 
kind, whose seed is in itself." It is the 



134 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

evolution of Growth, the seed unfolding, along the ideal 
axis of a plan, into the harvest, the harvest being of the 
same kind as the seed. The law of that kind of Evolution 
holds absolutely wherever there is life. It holds absolute- 
ly in the vegetable world. "Whatever a man sows, that 
shall he also reap (Gal. vi. '7). If he sows wheat, he will 
reap from that wheat, not tares, but Avheat. If he sows 
tares, he will reap from those tares, not wheat, but tares. 
The law holds with equal absoluteness in the spiritual 
world. If a man sows righteousness, he will reap from 
that righteousness, not sinfulness, but righteousness ; if he 
sows sinfulness, he will reap from that sinfulness, not right- 
eousness, but sinfulness. You cannot repeal the law of 
Evolution ; like begets like, and can beget no otherwise. 
You cannot annul the law of Propagation ; that which is 
born of the flesh is flesh, and cannot be anything but flesh ; 
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and cannot be 
anything but spirit (John iil. 6). You cannot cancel the 
law of the Harvest ; what a man sows that shall he also 
reap, always that. Alas, if the voices of Scripture, and 
Observation, and Experience, and Conscience, are to be 
trusted, all of us are born of the flesh, and all of us, there- 
fore, are sowing to the flesh ; and therefore, again, all of 
us will of the flesh reap corruption. Marvel not then that 
the Lord of nature and of man has said to us all, " Ye 
must be born again" (John iii. 1). You do not marvel 
at the law of the harvest in the vegetable world. You 
plant corn in the certain expectation that, if you reap any- 
thing from that seed, it will be corn. And the God of 
I^ature and the God of Morals is one and the same God. 
Marvel not then at the Lord's application of the Law of 
Evolution to the moral world. Ay, this statute, "Ye 
must be born again," is no new, special, exceptional edict ; 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 135 

it is written in the constitution of things. The Law of the 
Harvest settles the point. What hope is there then for 
ns ? How can we be born again ? Poor, decaying, death- 
stnick trees are we ; how then can we ever put forth tlie 
shoots of a hving righteousness? Oh, the unspeakable 
condescension ! He Who is the true Tree of Life benignly 
offers to scion Himself into our poor, fallen, dying charac- 
ters, and to rejuvenate them with the vigor of His own 
immortal youth-hood. Or, to reverse the figure, and at 
the same time give a new turn to the Apostle's argument, 
Ave, wild olives by I^ature, are grafted into the true and 
heavenly Olive (Rom. xi. 16-24), and so share in His Divine 
Virtues and beatific Lnmortality. Thus scion ed and thus 
abiding in Him — the True Yine — w^e shall indeed bring 
forth much fruit (John xv. i-io). 

And this leads us to our last point : 
p V .-fi ^ ^.^^^ ^ The Parable of Fructification : " Let the 

of Iructmcation. 

earth put forth shoots ; and let the tree 
yield fruit." Fruitage : this is the meaning of Yegetation. 
It is the very nature of growth, the very law of the seed, 
to unfold and issue in harvest. It is with reference to 
this issue that the whole plant is organized ; it is toward 
this issue that the whole plant-life converges. Beware 
then of letting the seed of the kingdom fall on the 
beaten wayside of a stony heart, where it cannot even 
germinate. Beware of letting it fall on the thin, j)ebbly 
soil of a shallow, frivolous heart, wdiere, though it quickly 
germinates, it as quickly perishes. Beware of letting it 
fall on the thorny soil of a preoccupied heart, where, though 
it germinates, and lives, and yields fruit, it brings forth 
no fruit to perfection. Take heed that the seed of the 
kingdom fall on the deep, rich soil of a good and honest 
heart, where, quickened bv CuyVs brcatli, it sliall yield a 



136 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

hundredfold (Matt. xiii.). See to it then that your faith is 
rooted in the Grace of God ; and then give all diligence, 
and add to your faith the other graces, sending up from 
the root of faith the trunk of wisdom and the sap of knowl- 
edge, putting forth the boughs of temperance, and the 
twigs of patience, and the leaves of godliness, and the 
blossoms of brotherly kindness, and the fruit of love 
(2 Peter i. 5-7). So shall you indeed pour forth at Immanuel's 
feet the cornucopia of a Christian character, even those 
fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, long-suffer- 
ing, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance 
(Gal. V. 22, 23). Abundantly bringing forth these various 
fruits every month in the year (Rev. xxii. 2), ye shall indeed 
glorify your Father, and prove that ye are in very truth 
the disciples of His Son (John xv. 8). 

This then is the lesson of the hour: The Birth of 
Powers to issue in Heavenly Fruitage. Be not content 
then with the mere sense of individuality and of duty, 
mechanically taking your allotted place with the grouping 
lands and seas (Gen. i. 9, lo) ; actually put forth in living exer- 
cise your latent powers. Yes, happy the day when the 
Lord of seeds and of souls says to thee : " Let the earth 
put forth shoots, and the fruit-tree yield its fruits ! " Thrice 
happy the day when thou obeyest, thy life becoming arbo- 
rescent, the leaves of thy tree spirally arranged so as to 
take in the most thou canst of God's air and sunshine, 
yielding the fruits of a Christian character. May it be for 
each one of us to flourish like the palm-tree and grow like 
the cedar, being planted in the house of the Lord, flour- 
ishing in the courts of our God, even in old age still bear- 
ing fruit (Psalm xcii. 12-14). Then, when death transplants us 
to the more genial clime of the Heavenly Eden, it will 
be seen that our branches are evermore interlacing vrith 



GENESIS OF THE PLANTS. 137 

the boughs of the Tree of Life. Meantime, as we wait 
amid the wintry blasts of earth for the great translation, 
let US catch inspiration from the Yision of the Flowers : 

" In all places, then, and in all seasons, 

Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings; 
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons. 
How akin they are to human things. 

" And with childlike, credulous affection, 
We behold their tender buds expand ; 
Emblems of our own great resurrection, 
Emblems of the bright and better land." 

(LOXGFELLOW.) 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and 
ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUKE YIIL 

GENESIS OF THE LUMINAKIES. 

" And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the 
heaven, to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, 
and for seasons, and for days, and years : and let them be for lights 
in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth : and it 
was so. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule 
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : He made the stars 
also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give 
light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, 
and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was 
good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." — 
Gexesis i. 14-19. 

T -^ , ,. EiEST of all, let iis attend to tlie Ex- 

I. — Explanation . ^ 

of the Passage. planation of tlie Passage. 

And yet, before proceeding with tlie 
explanation, let me direct yonr attention 
to what may be called the twin Triads 
of the Creative Week. This venerable Creation Archive 
evidently divides into two great eras, each era consisting 
of three days; each day of the first era having a corre- 
sponding day in the second era. Thns, to the chemical 
Light of the First Day correspond the sidereal Lights of 
the Fourth Day. To the terrestrial Individualization of 
the Second Day corresponds the yUsI Individualization of 
the Fifth Day. To the Genesis of the Lands and of the 



1.— Twin Triads of 
the Creative Week. 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 139 

Plants on the Third Day corresponds the Genesis of tlie 
Mammals and of Man on the Sixth Day. Thus, the first 
era of the Triad was an era of Proj^hecy ; the second era 
of the Triad, an era of Fulfillment. It is a majestic in- 
stance of that wonderful, Divinely-arranged Parallelism 
which we see on every side of us — e. g., Day and Night, 
Seed-time and Harvest, Man and Woman, IS'ature and 
Scripture, Matter and Spirit — and which finds verbal, 
stately utterance in the rhythmic sentiments so characteris- 
tic of Hebrew Poetry. And now to our Passage. 

" And God said : ' Let there be 

2.— The Twofold v i , • ■ i j? xi i 

j^.^ lights m the expanse oi the heavens, 

to give light on the earth.' And it 
w^as so ; and God made the two great lights and the stars, 
and set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light 
on the earth." But you interrupt me with some objec- 
tions. First you ask: "Was not light already existing? 
Have we not been expressly told in previous verses that 
light already existed as the issue of the First Day ? Is 
not then Moses inconsistent with liimself in asserting that 
light existed on the First Day, and subsequently asserting 
that the heavenly bodies were not created till the Fourth ? " 
The answer is easy. Light may exist independently of 
the sun. There is, e. g., the light of phosphorescence, the 
light of electricity, the light of incandescence, the light of 
chemism, atom clashing with atom, and discharging light 
at every collision. Recall the famous E'ebular Hypothesis 
to which I have so often adverted, xiccording to tliis 
magnificent conjecture, there has been a time, untold ages 
ago, when our globe was surrounded by a fiery, luminous 
vapor, like the dazzling photosphere of our present sun. 
Is tliere anything in the Mosaic Archive of Creation to 
conflict with this splendid Hypothesis ? Wliy bhimc 



140 STUDIES LV THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Moses for asserting that liglit existed before tlie sun was 
visible, and yet praise Kant and Herschel and Laplace and 
Plumboldt for asserting the same thing ? Bnt I hear an- 
other objection. " The earth," you remind me, " is a con- 
stituent part of the solar system ; as such, it necessitates 
from the beginning the contemporaneous existence of the 
sun, to hold the solar system in balance, and to keep earth 
itself in its orbit ; but if the sun was not created till the 
Fourth Day, what becomes of the astronomic teaching 
that earth has been from the beginning an integrant part 
of the solar system?" Again the answer is easy. Ob- 
serve, first, that our passage does not assert that God 
created — that is to say, caused to come into existence for 
the first time — sun, moon, and stars, on the Fourth Day. 
All that our passage asserts in this matter is this : God on 
the Fourth Day for the first time caused sun, moon, and 
stars to become visible. Remember that light is not an 
essential, constituent part of the sun. For aught we know, 
the sun itself may be a dark body, as indeed the " solar 
spots " have led some astronomers to think. Moreover : 
surveying the sun as the centre of gravitation for the 
planetary system, the sun can fulfill its gravitating ofiice 
equally well whether luminous or not. Let me then again 
ask you to observe carefully just w^hat the Sacred Chroni- 
cler says. He does not say : " God created the sun, moon, 
and stars on the Fourth Day." The creation of the 
heavenly bodies he has already implied in the very first 
statement of his Chronicle : " In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heavens and the earth " (Gen. i. i). What the 
Chronicler asserts is this : " God said : ' Let there be lights, 
luminaries, light-bearers, light-radiators, in the expanse of 
the heavens : ' and God made the two great lights and the 
stars;" that is to say: God constituted them, appointed 



GENESIS OF TEE LUMINARIES. 141 

tliein, to become luminaries, or liglit-bearers. The Dic- 
tum : " Let lights be ! " is evidently equivalent to the 
Dictum : " Let lights appear ! " If you ask me how this 
great change was brought about, I cannot answer. It may 
be that dense vapors had hitherto prevailed ; vapors exhal- 
ing from Chaos, from the newly shaped globe, from the 
steaming lands just arisen from their watery sepulchre, 
from the rank vegetation of the Carboniferous Era ; vapors 
so dense as to hide the heavenly bodies : and that the work 
of the Fourth Day consisted in giving transparency to the 
turbid atmosphere, and so letting through it the light of 
sun, moon, and stars. Or it may be, on the Fourth Day, 
God endowed the heavenly bodies with power to excite 
those undulations of the assumed universal ether which, 
according to the modern teaching, are occasions of light ; 
thus concentrating or massing the diffused light of the 
First Day into a23parently distinct, definite sources of light, 
or light centres, on the Fourth. As on the First Day Lie 
may have given light immediately by impressing Llis edict 
directly on the universal ether, so on the Fourth Day 
He may have given light mediately by establishing here 
and there in the universal ether sun, moon, and stars, as 
distinct and permanent centres or occasions of luminous 
vibration. However this may be, the point in hand is 
this : the sublimes t of modern scientific hypotheses, in de- 
claring that light existed before the appearance of the sun, 
simply echoes the voice of Moses. And now I have a 
question to ask : How came that ancient Chronicler, writing 
in that far-off unscientific age, to venture on so improbable 
a statement as that of placing the advent of the sun long 
after the advent of light? Is there any better answer 
than this — he was Divinely inspired ? Nevertheless let me 
reiterate my oft-repeated caution. Do not try to extort 



142 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

from onr text what the writer did not put in it. Eemem- 
ber that inspiration is not necessarily omniscience. Do not 
demand then that because Moses claims to be inspired, he 
must therefore know all about Gravitation, and Precession 
of Equinoxes, and Parallax. It is most unfair then to 
read his story as you would read ]N^ewton's "Principia," or 
Tyndall's " Lectures on Light." The reciter of this Crea- 
tion Archive does not claim to be a scientist. All he claims 
is that he has been permitted to gaze on the Creative Pro- 
cess as though it had been swiftly unrolled before him in 
panoramic vision. Accordingly, in describing what he has 
witnessed, he speaks visually, not philosophically ; scenically 
not scientifically. Let us then be just to him, taking liim 
at his thought as well as his word. 

Accordingly, let us again ascend his 
3.-Panorama of ^^^^^ ^f Panoramic Vision, and gaze 

the Emerging Lumi- . t ■, . i it . /P , 

j^^^j^g With linn on the unrolling section oi the 

Fourth Day. There is still light on the 
newly verdured mountain and mead. But it is a strange, 
weird light ; perhaps like that of the zodiacal gleam, or 
the dying photosphere, or perhaps like the iris-hued, lam- 
bent shimmer of the Northern Aurora. Suddenly the 
goldening gateways of the East open, and, lo, a dazzling 
Orb, henceforth the Lord of Day, strides forth from his 
cloud pavilion as a bridegroom from his chamber, and re- 
joices to run his course as a giant his race ; upward and 
upward he royally mounts ; downward and downward he 
royally bows ; as he nears the goal of his resplendent march, 
lo, the blushing portals of the West open to receive him : 
and lo, again, his gentle consort, " Pale Empress of the 
JN'ight," sweeps forth in silver sheen, wdiile around her 
planet and comet, Arcturus and Mazzaroth, Orion and 
Pleiades, hold glittering court. 'No wonder the morning 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 143 

stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy 

(Job xxxviii. 7). 

And now let lis ponder the purpose 
Luth^aiicr'''^^^'' of the Luminaries. "And God said; 
' Let there be lights in the expanse of 
the heavens, for dividing between the day and the night ; 
and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, 
and for years ; and let them be for lights in the expanse 
of the heavens, for giving light on the earth.' And it was 
so. And God made the two great lights ; the greater 
light for dominion over the day, and the lesser light for 
dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set 
tJiem in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the 
earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to 
divide between the light and the darkness." The purpose 
then was threefold. 

First : " To divide between the Day 
(«.)-To divide be- ^^^ ^i^g Night:" that is to say: to 

tvvccn the Day and , . , , i, ,. ^ t i , i 

the Njo-iit brmg about alternations oi light and 

darkness. But w^liy was this necessary ? 
Remember then that man as at present constituted must 
have recurrent periods of sleep. Every exercise of his 
powers, whether bodily, mental, or moral, involves a loss 
of vital force. That loss must be compensated by periodic 
seasons of repose ; otherwise he will become insane and die. 
In sleep there is a more or less complete suspension of vol- 
untary motion and consciousness. Sleep is thus one of the 
grand reservoirs for the supply of the constant waste going 
on in our w^orking hours. As a matter of fact, the health- 
ful man does and must spend about one-third of his life in 
sleep. Ah, I know of no more touching evidence of 
Christ's real humanity, being in very truth bone of my 
bone and flesli of my flesh, than when I read that, wearied 



144 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

with the toils of an eventful and harassing day, He went 
on board one of the little crafts of Gennesaret, and in- 
stantly fell asleep, and, though a great tempest suddenly 
rose and raged, He still slept on (Mark iv. 36-38). And I 
know of no more glowing evidence of the transcendent 
superiority of the coming heavenly estate than when I 
read : " There shall be no night there " (Rev. xxii. 5). Mean- 
time we are of the earth, earthy, and must struggle on, as 
best we may, under the laws of this inferior stage of exist- 
ence. Labor, anxiety, sorrow, inexorably entail fatigue. 
And so it comes to pass that resting is at times as truly 
a duty as working: sleeping, as waldng. When, then, 
jaded with the toils and cares and griefs of the day, the 
stilly evening comes, how delicious is the coming on of 
sleep — that blessed 

" Sleep, tliat knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great N'atare's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast." 

— (" MACBExn," Act XL, Scene 2.) 

And that we may sleep and wake at healthful intervals, 
how mercifully the Framer of our bodies and Father of 
our spirits has divided the day from the night ; at ever} 
sunset dropping the curtains of His evening, and so inviting 
to repose ; at every sunrise lifting the curtains of His morn- 
ing, and so inviting to labor ! Ah, it is one of the perhaps 
inevitable regresses of civilization that it tends to reverse 
our Divine Father's method, bidding us close our shutters, 
that we may sleep during His sunshine, and light our little 
candles and gas-jets, that we may work during His night. 
Is it not enough that the carnivorous animals — the tiger 
and hyena among beasts, and the burglar and assassin among 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 145 

men — should sleep by day and prowl by niglit ? May we 
not liope that in the still richer civilization ^vhich awaits 
US, society will revert to the primeval simplicity, and w^ith 
the patriarchal witness of Creation's Panorama gratefully 
acce]3t the sunrise as God's summons to work, and the sun- 
set as God's summons to rest ? 

But our passage assigns a second 
(i.)-Tobefoi;Signs, ^^^^^^^^ ^. ^j^^ Creator set the sun, 

Seasons, Days, Years. "^ . 

moon, and stars m the expanse oi the 
heavens ; it is that they may be " for signs and for seasons, 
and for days, and years ; " that is to say, that they may 
serve us as notations of time. For in all ages of the world 
men have accepted the motions of the heavenly bodies as 
the measure of duration or time. It is these motions, theso 
sunrises and sunsets, these new and full moons, these morn- 
ing and evening stars, these transits of the meridian, which 
have enabled men to divide time into seconds, minutes, 
hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years, decades, cen- 
turies, millenniums. It is also to these motions of the 
heavenly bodies that we owe such words as dial, clock, 
cln'onometer, journal. Sabbath, anniversary, era, almanac, 
calendar, chronology, even that august word — History, 
Sun, moon, and stars are man's natural chronometer. " Our 
watclies are but miniature transcripts of the celestial revo- 
lutions." Unlike the heavenly clocks, they ever and anon 
get out of order ; and tlien we have to go to the sun again 
in order to have them rectified. Yerily, these lights which 
God has set in the expanse of the heavens do serve for 
signs and for seasons, for days and for years. True as 
tliese words w^ere in those primeval days, when men had so 
little idea of the distance and vastness of the stars, im- 
mensely truer are they in these days of Copernican astron- 
omy and telescope and micrometer. Moreover: the mo- 



146 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tions of the heavenly bodies serve ns not only as measures 
of time ; they also serve ns as measures of space. Green- 
wich on the Thames owes its blessed celebrity to onr text. 
A gallant ship freighted with that most precious of cargoes 
— a complement of passengers — has reached mid-ocean. A 
fierce gale, lasting hours and days, bursts upon her. Strong 
steersmen grasp the helm ; but the tempest is stouter than 
the rudder. Hour after hour, day after day, she flies with 
the sweeping, veering blasts. At length the tempest dies, 
and the clouds break away. But where is she ? How far 
has she drifted from her course ? No islander is there to 
answer — no guide-post within a thousand miles. True, 
her dead reckoning, worked from her departure, gives 
her position ; but only approximatively. . And the passen- 
gers are nervous, and the captain is conscientious. Where 
then is she exactly ? Eight o'clock a. m. approaches. The 
officer, sextant in hand, mounts the bridge. Speak not to 
him ; for he is about to talk with a far-off, celestial Pilot. 
Peering through his sextant, he observes the sun's exact 
altitude — and at the same instant notes his chronometer. 
Silently withdrawing into his little cabin, he compares his 
observation with the sun's declination as given by the 
Nautical Almanac, with the approximate latitude as given 
by the dead reckoning, and the local time w^ith the Green- 
wich as given by the chronometer. Presently he appears, 
saying : '^ Longitude, so many degrees, so many minutes, 
W." But this is not enough. Anxiously he awaits the 
noon. As the critical moment approaches, again he takes 
his sextant, and again he mounts the bridge. Do not 
speak to him, for again he is about to talk with the solemn 
heavens. Again peering through his sextant, he observes 
the exact instant the sun crosses the meridian. Again 
silently v/ithdrawing into his little cabin, and consulting 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 147 

his IN'autical Almanac, lie compares liis observation of the 
sun's altitude with his declination for that instant. Pre- 
sently he returns, and with a smile of triumph announces : 
" Latitude, so many degrees, so many minutes, IS". ; from 
New York so many miles ; from Liverpool so many miles." 
Thus Earth has questioned Heaven, and Heaven has an- 
swered Earth. And so it has happened ten thousand times, 
alike in Atlantic, in Paciiic, in Lidian, and in Caribbean. 
Polyglot indeed is the language of the skies. There is 
no speech, nor language, where their voice is not heard ; 
their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words 
to the end of the world (rsalm xix. 1-4). 

But our passage assigns still another 
[!~J^ ^!^^ '°'^ reason why the Creator set the lumina- 

on the Lartb. ^ ^ "^ 

ries in the expanse of the heavens ; it 
is that they may give light on the earth. " God made the 
two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day ; the 
lesser light to rule the night ; and the stars ; and He set 
them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the 
earth." Pespecting the indispensableness of light as one 
of the essential conditions of human activity and of life 
itself, I need not speak to-day ; for we have already des- 
canted on it in our study of the First Day, when God said : 
'' Let light be ; " and light was. Yet before leaving the 
point it will be proper to give a moment's consideration to 
a question wliicli this light-giving office of the heavenly 
Ijodies, as asserted in our text, raises. When, on the one 
liand, we remember that the sun outweighs 355,000 earths, 
and that, immense as the sun is, it is one of the smallest 
of the countless stars — Alcyone, e. g., being 12,000 times 
larger ; and when, on the other hand, we are told that the 
sun and stars were set in the heavens to give light to this 
tiny earth : docs it not look like a vast disproportion of 



148 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

means to ends ? The answer is twofold : First, Moses is 
not giving ns a history of the heavens ; he is giving ns a 
history of the earth, mentioning the heavens only as they 
affect the earth. He does not profess to be an astronomer, 
knowing all about the distances and magnitudes of the stars ; 
he only professes to describe things as he saw them in pan- 
oramic trance. Thus seeing them, the sun, moon, and 
stars did seem to him as though set in the heavens to give 
light on the earth. The other answer is this : Greatness 
does not depend on bulk. To human vision nothing was 
ever smaller than that grain of seed which fell into Calvary's 
soil and died. To angelic vision nothing will ever be vaster 
than that Tree of Life which, having sprung up from Cal- 
vary's dying seed, is overshadowing human space and human 
time, and sending out its boughs through all the immensities. 
Such is the threefold ministry of the heavenly bodies : 
to give alternations of day and night ; to give notations of 
time ; and to give light on the earth. 'No wonder, then, 
that the ancient world was so given to astrology, believing 
that the events of human life were influenced and dom- 
inated by the horoscope, or relative positions and aspects 
of the heavenly bodies at the moment of birth^ or at any 
other critical instant. How curious to note the relics of 
this hoary superstition in such words as Sunday, Monday, 
Saturday, Saturnine, ill-starred, disastrous. Mercurial, Mar- 
tial, Jovial, Lunatic, etc. ! ^Nevertheless, there is an Astrol- 
ogy which is divinely true, dominating our everlasting des- 
tiny ; it is the Star of Bethlehem. God grant each of us 
that that Star in the East, rising in the firmament of our 
second birth, or true house of Nativity, may evermore be 
the Lord of the Ascendant. Ay, let Him be the true Jo- 
seph, before whom sun, moon, planets, and all stars of 
heaven make perpetual obeisance (Gen. xxxvii. 9-ii). 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 149 

" And God saw that it was good." 

*~ '^ ' ^ And well mis^lit the Creator take de- 
was Good, ^ 

light in the advent of His luminaries. 
When we remember how beneficently the arrangements of 
the Fom-th Day affect all life — vegetal, animal, human ; 
how they give us the blessed alternations of day and night, 
spring and autumn, work and rest ; w^hen we remember 
how they give us ability to make and keej) appointments 
and obligations, whether secular or religious, enabling us 
to fix our railway time-tables, to know the time of the ma- 
turing of an obligation, to calendar human history, to date 
our documents and correspondence — e. g., 3 p. m., February 
26, 1878 — to know when Sunday comes, to celebrate amii- 
versaries of Birthday and Centennial, Christmas and Eas- 
ter, to divide our otherwise dateless, monotonous, stale life 
into refreshing changes of chapters, paragraphs, verses, and 
clauses ; when we remember that it is the periodically-re- 
current motions of the heavenly bodies which awaken the 
instincts of order and method, instigating us to arrange 
our lives systematically, and take on habits — that is to say, 
character — every morning astronomically inviting us to 
pray : " Father, give us this day our daily bread ; " when 
we remember how these 

" Far-reaching concords of astronomy, 
Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds," 

— (R. W. Emeeson) 

regulate the vital poriods or cycles of all terrestrial life, 
giving to vegetation that year which it needs for its 
growth and its hibernation, its seed-time and its harvest ; 
to birds that twelvemonth which they must have for mat- 
ing, nesting, hatching, fledging, migrating, returning, thus 
enabling the stork in the heavens to know her appointed 
times, and the turtle-dove, and the swallow, and the crane. 



150 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

to observe the time of tlieir coining (Jer. viii. '7) — so tliat 
the very animals and plants become in their turn nat- 
ural chronometers, striking tally with the motions of the 
heavenly bodies ; when we remember that, without these 
divisions of time which the sidereal motions suggest and 
maintain, there could be no clock, no calendar, no chronol- 
ogy, no history, no sense of progress, no goal of anticipa- 
tion — in short, when we remember that our very thinking 
consecutively depends on succession in time, which succes- 
sion is offered and regulated by the. apparent motions of 
the starry hosts ; when we remember all this, we, too, may 
gratefully share in the Creator's delight, and with Him 
pronounce the work of the Fourth Day very good. 

" O Lord, how manifold are Thj works ! 
In wisdom hast Thou made them all."— (Psalm civ. 24.) 

" The day is Thine, the night also is Thine. 

Thou hast prepared the light and the sun ; 

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth ; 

Thou hast formed summer and winter." 

—(Psalm Ixxiv. 16, 17.) 
*' Yea, Thou hast mads everything beautiful in its time," 

(ECCLESIASTES ill. 11. '^ 

Such is the Story of the Genesis of the Luminaries. 

„ ,, ' ,r -^^^ ^ow, what are the moral les- 

II. — Moral Mean- i? .i . g t^ ^ i x 

ing of the Story. ^""^^ ^^ ^^^ ^*^^:5^ ' ^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^7- ^ 
will mention two. 

1.— The Luminaries And, first I these mighty ordinances 
Chrift''''^'' *^ ^''^' of sun, and moon, and stars, this blessed 
covenant of Day and Mght, of Seasons 
and Years, are shining index-fingers, everlastingly pointing 
to Jesus the Christ. In fact, the Creator has exj)ressly 
bidden us accept His ordinances of the heavenly bodies as 
the pledge of His Covenant of Grace in the Divine Son 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 151 

of Mary : " Tlius saitli Jehovah, Who giveth the sun for 
light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the 
stars for hght by night: 'If ye can break My covenant 
of the Day, and My covenant of the Night, so that there 
should not be day and night in their season; then also 
My covenant shall be broken with David My servant, 
that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne ' 
(Jcr. xxxi. 35 ; xxxiii. 20-26) ; ' for I have swoni in My holi- 
ness to David, that his seed shall be forever, and his 
throne as the sun before Me; it shall be established for- 
ever as the moon, and as the faithful witness in the 
skies ' " (Psalm Ixxxix. 35-3'7). Yea, Thou Creator-Redeemer, 
we accept Thy glorious Heavens as the shining prophets of 
Thy Grace. Nor have they been pointing to Immanuel 
in vain. Ah, friends, not aiways shall Genius and Unbe- 
lief go hand in hand ; not always shall learning be philos- 
ophy of vain deceit (Col. ii. 8), or oppositions of Science, 
falsely so called (i Tim. vi. 20). In the homage of the Wise 
Men from the East at the shrine of the Nativity, Faith 
and Science were betrothed, and the w^orld will yet cele- 
brate their open bridal. Then will it be confessed that 
the Lord of Creation and the Lord of Eedemption is 
one ; that the Finger which wrote on the tables of the 
Silurian sandstone is the Finger wdiich ^\Tote on the ta- 
bles of the Sinaitic granite ; that the Hand which reared 
the gigantic forests of the Carboniferous Era is the Hand 
which was nailed to Calvary's tree ; that the Dixit which 
islanded primeval space with nebulous masses is the Dixit 
Avhich jeweled the Judean night-dome with the Star of 
Bethlehem. Yea, the day is at hand when Astronomy, 
conscious of her august calling, shall proudly inscribe 
on her frontlet the blazing legend : " Sun of Eighteous- 

neSS " (Mai. iv. 2). 



152 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK 

The other lesson is this : Jesus 
2.-Christ and His cj^nst and His Church and His Truths 

Church and His xi j. t • • i • • • j.i 

Truths th Tru ^^^ Liiminaries, shmmg m the 

Luminaries. true Heavens. Jesus Christ Himself is 

the true Greater Light, ruling the day 
as the Sun of Righteousness, coming out of the chamber 
of His Eternity as the King of the worlds, going forth 
from the ends of the heavens, circling unto the ends there- 
of, and nothing is hidden from His heat (Psalm xix. 5, g). 
The Church of Jesus Christ — Immanuel's real, spiritual 
Church, the aggregate of Saintly Characters — is the true 
lesser Light : ruling the night as the moon of His Grace, 
shining because He shines upon her, silvering the pathway 
of this world's benighted travelers. The Truths of Jesus 
Christ — the Truths which He came to disclose — are the true 
Stars of Heaven, from age to age sparkling on His brow 
as His many-jeweled diadem. And Jesus Christ and His 
Church and His Truths are the world's true regulators — 
serving for its signs and its seasons, its days and its years. 
Let me cite a single instance. "Why do not the world's 
scholars still measure time from the Greek Olympiads? 
Why do not the w^orld's kings still reckon their annals 
from the Year of Eonie ? Why do not the world's scien- 
tists date their era from some memorable Transit or Oc- 
cuitation? Ah, Jesus Christ and His Church and His 
Truth are too much for them. And so they all, even the 
most infidel, bow in unconscious homage before the Eabe 
of Bethlehem, reckoning their era from that manger-birth, 
dating their correspondence, their legislations, their discov- 
eries, their exploits, with the august words : Anno Domini. 
Yes, Christianity is Humanity's true Meridian, dictating 
its measures of time and space, its calendars and eras, its 
latitudes and longitudes. All history, if we did but know 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 153 

it, is Time's great ecliptic around the Eternal Son of God. 
Happy the hour, brother, when the Fourth Day dawns on 
thy soul, and thou takest thy place in the moral heavens, 
hGnc3fortli to shine and rule as one of earth's luminaries ! 
And this leads me to my last point. 
A rersonal En- rp^j^^ ^^^^^ q friend, lest the day come 

^^^^' when the stars, now fighting in their 

courses for thee, shall fight against thee (Judges v. 20). In 
that coming day of sackclothed sun and crimsoned moon 
and falling stars, one thing shall survive the dissolving 
heavens and melting elements : It is the Blood-bought 
Church of the Living God. Even now I see her, as in 
visions of Patmos, clothed with the sun, under her feet the 
moon, on her head the diadem of twelve stars (Rev. xii. i). 
Oh, then, live worthily of thine inejffable calling. Let 
it not be enough that thy Maker, in reducing the chaos 
of thy soul to order, does the work of the First Day, shin- 
ing into thy dark heart, and giving thee light ; let the 
Fourth Day come, that thou, too, in thy turn, mayst be a 
light to others, even those who are still walking in dark- 
ness, and dwelling in the land of the shadow of death. So 
shalt thou find that 

" the toppling crags of Duty scaled, 
Are close upon the shining table-lands 
To which our God Himself is moon and sun." 

— (Tennyson.) 

So shalt thou keep in chime with yon circling stars, doing 
thy Father's will on earth, even as they do it in the 
heavens. For, 

" There's not the smallest orb which thou bchold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. 

— (" Mekciiant of Venice," v. 1.) 



154 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Oil, read then aright tlie lessons Almighty God has 
written in blazing characters on heaven's empyrean. With 
the Wise Men from the East be led by Bethlehem's Star 
to the House of Eternal Bread. Then, in that day of dis- 
solving nature, v^hen many of earth's brightest ones, sons 
of the morning, shall, Lucifer-like, fall, to go out in ever- 
lasting blackness, thou shalt orb forth into everlasting 
splendor. Then shall the light of thy moon be as the light 
of the sun, and the light of thy sun sevenfold, as the light 
of seven days (Is. xxx. 26) : for Jehovah shall be unto thee 
an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory (Is. ix. 19). Oh, 
that that promised day would swiftly come ! 

" Watcliman, tell us of the night, 

What its signs of promise are. 
Traveler, o'er yon mountain height 

See that glory-beaming Star. 
Watchman, does its beauteous ray 

Aught of hope or joy foretell? 
Traveler, yes ; it brings the day, 

Promised day of Israel. 

*' Watchman, tell us of the night ; 

Higher yet that Star ascends. 
Traveler, blessedness and light, 

Peace and truth its course portends. 
Watchman, will its beams alone 

Gild the spot that gave them birth ? 
Traveler, ages are its own ; 

See, it bursts o'er all the earth. 

" Watchman, tell us of the night, 

For the morning seems to dawn. 
Traveler, darkness takes its flight ; 

Doubt and terror are withdrawn. 
Watchman, let thy wanderings cease ; 

Hie thee to thy quiet home. 



GENESIS OF THE LUMINARIES. 155 

Traveler, lo I the Prince of Peace, 
Lo ! the Son of God is come." 

— (Sir John Boweing.) 

Glorj be to tlie Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Moly Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE IX. 

GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 

" And God said : Let the waters bring forth abundantly the mov^ 
ing creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in 
the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and 
every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth 
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : 
and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying : Be 
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl 
multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the 
fifth day. And God said : Let the earth bring forth the living creat- 
ure after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth 
after his kind : and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth 
after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creep- 
eth upon the earth after his kind : and God saw that it was good." — 
Genesis i. 20-25. 

I.— Explanation First of all, let us attend to the Ex- 

of the Passage. planation of the Passage. 

At the outset, then, observe that I 

^'Tt..^!!"'^ ^}J xt ^^^yQ included in the passaere not mere- 
sue of Fifth and Sixth T-|. r. -I -^ 
Pays. V the work oi the i iith Day, but also 

the first part of the work of the Sixth. 
My reasons for thus considering them in one lecture is 
that they naturally form a single and distinct topic, name- 
ly, the Creation of Animals ; while the second part of the 
work of the Sixth Day as naturally forms another single 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS 157 

and distinct topic, namely, tlie Creation of Man. More- 
over : remembering that the measures of time in this Cre- 
ation Archive are not literal days of twenty-four hours 
each, but eras of indefinite length, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that the Creations on the various days more or less 
overlap each other, the Creation wrought on any given 
day being the characteristic work of that day. These 
explanations, then, justify me in considering in one lecture 
the work of the Fifth Day and a part of the work of the 
Sixth — that is to say, the Genesis of Animals. 

Remembering, now, that our Chroni- 

2. — Panorama of ^j^^, ^^^g j^^^. pj^ofcSS to be a ZOologist, 
the Emerging Ani- . , ^ ^ t i m ^ 

^^^^jg but only an observer and describer oi a 

passing scene, let us again ascend his 
mount of vision, and survey the unrolling panorama of the 
Emerging Animals. The Fourth Day, with its flood of 
solar light, has come. But, though the soil is verdant 
with glorious vegetation, no beast walks the land, no bird 
flies the air, no fish swims the sea. And now is heard 
again the Omnific Word : " Let Animals be ! " And, lo, 
the nautilus spreads his sail, and the caterpillar winds his 
cocoon, and the spider weaves his web, and the salmon 
darts through the sea, and the lizard glides among the 
rocks, and the eagle soars the sky, and the lion roams the 
jungle, and the monkey chatters among the trees, and all 
animate Creation waits the advent and lordship of Man, 
God's Inspiration and therefore God's Image, God's Image 
and therefore God's Yiceroy. 

For, observe that our j^assage sets 
3. -The Animal ^^^.^|^ ^^^ Gencsis of the Animals in an 

j.^,gg ' ^°"" ascending order. First, Animals of the 

water : " God said : ' Let the waters 

swarm with swanns of livino^ beings;' and God created 



158 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the great sea-monsters — literally, long-extended creatures — 
and every living thing that moveth, with which the waters 
swarm, after their kind." Secondly, Animals of the air : 
''God said : ' Let birds fly above the earth along the ex- 
panse of the heavens ; ' and God created every winged bird, 
after its kind." Thirdly, Animals of the land : " God 
said : ' Let the earth bring forth the living being, after its 
kind, cattle and reptile and beast of the earth, after its 
kind : ' and it was so." Fourthly, Man : " God said : ' Let 
Us make man in Our image, after Oar likeness :' and God 
created the man in His own image, in the image of God 
created He him; male and female created He them." 
And with this Mosaic account of the Origin of Life, ascend- 
ing from plant, by way of animal, to man, the geological 
records substantially agree : first, plants and fishes of the 
Palaeozoic period ; secondly, birds and reptiles of the Meso- 
zoic period; thirdly, mammals and man of the Neozoic 
period. Bemember, now, that our Passage, even as the 
most skeptical scholars concede, was in existence as a piece 
of literature at least twenty-five centuries ago. Pemember, 
also, that Geology has not yet celebrated her first Centen- 
nial. And now I have a question to ask. How happens 
it that that f ar-oif, unlored witness of Creation's panorama, 
writing, as I believe, centuries before the Trojan War be- 
gan, succeeded in so nearly formulating the teachings of 
modern Geology? Look at this very curious, most sug- 
gestive fact. That ancient Chronicler tells us that God on 
the Fifth Day created the tanninhn ; that is to say, long- 
extended creatures. What, now, did he mean by these 
tanninim, or long-extended creatures? "Whales? So 
thought the scholars of 250 years ago. To them the 
whale was the longest creature known. Accordingly, 
when in 1611, by commission of James I., the learned 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS 159 

Eevisers of the ^' Bishops' Bible " gave to the world the 
translation known as the " Authorized Yei*sion," they ren- 
dered the w^ord tannin by the word whale : " God created 
great whales." But in 1611 Geology, as a definite science, 
had not been born ; she is the blooming daughter of the 
nineteenth century. But, though her hands are youthful 
and delicate, she has succeeded in many a place in upheav- 
ing earth's rocky crust ; and, lo, here and there, in Europe 
and Australia, in Asia and America, there come to light 
gigantic fossils of tanniniin indeed, vast animal exten- 
sions, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty feet long ; 
fossils of colossal creatures w^hich became extinct untold 
ages before Adam awoke in Eden to kiss his Heaven-given 
bride. The difference between the modern geologist and 
the ancient Chronicler is this : the Geologist calls these 
enormous fossils by names almost as enormous : Dino- 
saurs, Hydrosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, Plesiosaurs, 
Pterodactyls, etc. The hoary Witness of Creation's pano- 
rama was not a geologist ; he was only an observer, and 
therefore lie called them " long-extended creatures." And 
so fair Geology, dowered wdth the glorious heirloom of 
untold ages, emerges from the rocky sepulchre of an im- 
memorial antiquity, and, ascending the witness-stand of 
Time, sets aside the mistranslations of the learned and 
ecclesiastical past, and, kneeling before the hoary transcri- 
ber of the primeval Creation Tradition, solemnly swears 
that he alone speaks the truth. Ay, the very stones of 
the field are in league with the sons of God. But let me 
not be diverted from the point in hand. I was speaking 
of the ascending order of the animal creation. And the 
ascending order is prophetic as well as historic. The plant 
suggests the animal ; the animal suggests man. For man 
himself begins as a microscopic, plant-like cell, and, unfold- 



160 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

ing along the scale of tlie animal creation, culminates in 
being a temple of God. Alas ! many men never outgrow 
tlie animal, forever contentedly creeping. Alas, alas ! some 
men never outgrow the plant, forever simply vegetating ; 
and this only as the fiowerless cryptogams, the parasitic 
fnngi of society. 

l^ot that the ascending order of the 

4. — "After their . -, . ^^ -n( t x* j? 

j^. . „ animal succession was an " Ji volution oi 

Species into Species." In the first place, 
as was shown in the Lectnre on Plants, " Species " is but an 
abstract term, a mere concept, having no concrete, objective 
existence in the world of matter : who ever saw a Species ? 
Again : Evolutionists use their shibboleth — " Evolution " — 
very hazily, confounding it with transmutation, which is 
an utterly different thing. Evolution — if we use the word 
intelligently, not playing fast and loose with it — ^means un- 
rolling. But you cannot unroll what has not been inroUed ; 
you cannot evolve what has not been involved. In other 
w^ords, the evolution of a concrete, definite, objective or- 
ganism, say a salmon, a turtle, an eagle, a whale, a gorilla, 
a man, is — if we use the word intelligently and accurately 
— an affair of weight : and you cannot evolve a ton out of 
a kilogramme. Nevertheless, there is an evolution in which 
I believe ; but it is an ideal evolution : that is to say, the 
evolution along the ideal axis of a plan and purpose : e. g., 
the unfolding of a leonine ovum into the adult lion is an 
evolution along the ideal axis of a vertebrate mammal. In 
this sense, our hoary Chronicler was an evolutionist. Ob- 
serve the emphatic, solemn frequency with which he uses 
the profound phrase : " After his kind ; " i. e., " After his 
plan, idea." Seven times is the phrase repeated in our 
brief passage. Like the previous, solemn iteration of the 
same phrase in the Story of the Genesis of the Plants, it 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. Id 

almost stands like a prophetic caveat against tlic modern 
hypothesis of the Mutability of Species. Alike according 
to Moses and the observed facts of J^ature, the tree, whose 
seedis in itself, bears fruit after its kind ; the fish of the sea 
bears fishes after its kind ; the bird of the air bears birds after 
its kind ; the beast of the land bears beasts after its kind. 
^ m, n ^ 5 And now we pass to note the Crea- 

5. — Tlic Creator's ^ 

Blessin''. tor's Blcssing : " And God blessed them, 

and said: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, 
and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on 
the earth.' " Observe : our Chronicler represents the Cre- 
ator as speaking to the animals. This is one of the many 
hints which drive us to the conclusion that this Creation 
Archive is not to be taken literally, but as the inspired 
portrayal of. a panoramic vision. And the Divine blessing 
was the benediction of fertility. The fecundity of animals 
is simply amazing. Recall, e. g., the enonnous ratio of 
increase of the shad and the salmon as propagated by the 
modern methods of fish-culture. It is asserted that a sin- 
gle spawning-ground of the herring contains a hundred 
thousand million eggs. And as to the animalcules, the 
number is simply inconceivable ; earth's vast strata of lime- 
stone and reefs of coral and cliffs of chalk being the solidi- 
fied secretions of microscopic animal life. 

"And God saw that it was good." 
'~ ^^ ^^^^° And well might He rejoice in the ad- 
vent of His Animals. And so also may 
we. When we remember how w^onderful are the con- 
trivances of the animal economy — contrivances of organ 
and tissue and nerve and muscle and bone and teeth — con- 
trivances of digestion and circulation and respiration and 
reproduction — contrivances of feeling and tasting and hear- 
ing and seeing and moving ; when we remember how 



162 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

serviceable many of the animals are to man — ^liow the 
camel bears him across the desert and the reindeer across 
the snows — how the ox and the ass and the horse draw his 
burdens — ^how the fish and the bird and the beef furnish 
him with food — how the sheep and the silk-worm supply 
him with clothing— ay, how his very dog ministers to his 
pride and joy and love ; when we remember how capable 
of pleasure the animals themselves are — ^liow gleefully the 
fawn gambols, how rollickingly the squirrel scampers, how 
blithely the bobolink sings, how sportively the trout darts, 
how merrily the cricket chirps, how friskingly the mote 
dances, how ecstatically the rotifer whirls ; when we re- 
member all this, we too may share in the Creator's delight, 
and with Plim pronounce the setting-up of the Animal 
Kingdom very good. 

Such is the Story of the Genesis of the Animals. 
II.— Moral Mean- And, now, what is the Meaning of 

ing of the Stoiy. the Story ? 
Problem of the It must be confessed, at least at first 

Animals. sight, that the story is singularly want- 

ing in ethical lessons. We can understand the meaning of 
light, heat, air, plant. But what is the meaning of Ani- 
mals ? They do not seem to be an essential, constituent 
part of the human economy. Had never one of them 
been created, we could have lived, as in fact the inhabi- 
tants of the tropics mainly do live, on vegetable diet ; we 
could have used, as in fact we are every day more and 
more using, steam power for horse. And yet, Ehrenberg 
tells us that " one cubic inch of chalk often contains more 
than a million of microscopic skeletons ; " and chalk exists 
by the furlong in depth, the mile in breadth, the league in 
length. And we cannot suppose that God has created 
anything in vain : " He saw everything that He had made. 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 163 

and, lo, it was very good." Here, then, is a stupendous 
fact, and, at tlie same time, a stupendous problem — the 
Animal Creation. 'No thoughtful man, who believes in a 
purj)oseful God, can push it aside as unimportant. What, 
then, is the meaning of the Animals ? 

, . , , Consider then, first, that, if the 

1. — Animals have ' . ' . i i 

» Souls." Scripture is to be believed, animals have 

" souls." And here let me repeat some 
words given to the public more than ten years ago.^ We 
must distinguish, as Holy Writ itself distinguishes, between 
Soul and Spirit. The Spirit is the capacity or organ by 
which man has the sense of God, by which he comes into 
contact with Him, and apprehends Him, and knows Him, 
and feels Him, and loves Him, and enters into fellowship 
with Him, and is made partaker of the Divine nature 
(2 Peter i. 4) ; the Spirit is " the organ of spiritual-minded- 
ness." On the other hand, the Soul is the principle of 
life, the vital principle, the mysterious force which makes 
the object which possesses it, whatever it be, a vital thing. 
What the nature of this force is, whether material or im- 
material — what its origin and laws of working — is the most 
baffling, as well as fascinating, of l^ature's secrets ; hither- 
to, and probably for evermore, defying scalpel and micro- 
scope, physiologist and philosopher. And yet, although we 
do not understand its origin or nature, we do understand 
something of its movements and relations. Phenomenally 
surveyed, the Soul seems to be endowed with a m^^sterious- 
ly gathering, selecting, forming, organizing, directing force. 
In some utterly inscnitable way, it seems to gather around 
it material atoms for the body it informs and vitalizes, and 
manifests itself in all varieties of sensation, emotion, in- 
stinct, reason, volition. It seems to be the inmost centre 

^ See Baptist Quarterhj, vol. i., No. 2. i^ 



164 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

and pivot of tlie personality, around wliich. the whole man, 
as now constituted, gathers, crystallizes, and lives, according 
to an order of God's own establishing. In answer to its 
mystic power, the heart throbs, the lungs wax and w^ane, 
the sensibilities awaken, the passions take fire, the imagina- 
tion roams, the reason marches forth in logical sequence, 
the will strides on in exploits of conquest. And all this is 
shared, though in an immeasurably lower degree, by the 
animal world. Eeason and instinct, I am disposed to be- 
lieve, are only relative, comparative terms. What in man 
we call reason, in animals we call instinct. As that mys- 
terious force which vitalizes and builds up the fabric of 
the human body is the same mysterious force which vital- 
izes and builds up the fabric of the animalcule, so that 
mysterious guide which teaches I^ewton how to establish 
the law of gravity, and Shakespeare how to write his " Ham- 
let," and Stephenson how to bridge the St. Lawrence, 
seems substantially to be the same mysterious guide which 
teaches the beaver how to build his dam, and the spider 
how to weave his w^eb, and the ant how to dig his spiral 
home. The difference does not seem to be so much a dif- 
ference in nature or kind, as in degree or intensity. As 
the diamond is the same substance wdth charcoal — only 
under superior crystalline figure — so reason seems to be 
substantially the same with instinct — only in an intensely 
organized state. One thing is common to man and ani- 
mals : it is that mysterious principle or force wdiich, in 
want of a better name, and in distinction from the tenn 
spirit, w^e call "soul." Accordingly, Scripture itself as- 
cribes to animals the possession of souls. In this very ac- 
count of the Genesis of Animals, which w^e have in hand 
to-day, the terms describing the water and land animals, 
and rendered in our version " the creature that hath life " 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 165 

or " living creature," are literally identical with the terms 
rendered in the account of the Genesis of Man : " Living 
soul." Listen : " Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
the moving creature that hath life," or, as you may read 
in the margin of your Bibles, " living soul." Listen again : 
" Let the earth bring forth the living creature, the living 
soul, after its kind." Listen once more : " The Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul, a living creature " (Gen. ii. '7). Remember also the 
exceedingly meaningful circumstance that the higher or- 
ders of animals and man were created in the same era, 
even on the same Sixth, culminating Day. " God said : 
'Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his 
hind : ' and it was so. . . . And God said : ' Let Us make 
man in Our image, after Our likeness : ' and God created 
tlie man in His image. . . . And there was evening, and 
there w^as morning, a Sixth Day." Ah, we little know 
what mystic bonds of kinship join animal and man. How 
humanlike the ways of the higher forms of animals! 
Whistle for your devoted Fritz. See how joyously he 
bounds toward you, wagging his tail in nervous ecstasy ; 
]iow lovingly he rests his paw and head on your knee. 
What Shylock, protesting to Salarino, said of his race, you 
may say of your Fritz : '' Hath he not eyes ? Hath he not 
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ? Is he not 
fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, sub- 
ject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, w\armed 
and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian 
is ? If you prick him, does he not bleed ? If you tickle 
him, does he not laugh ? If you poison him, does he not 
dieV (" Merchant of Venice," iii. 1.) Yerily, animals, even as 
the Scripture saith, have souls. 



166 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

And having sonls, who knows but 
.— n er aps ^-j^^^ animals, at least some of them, are 

are Immortal. ' , ' 

immortal ? True, it is one of our sapi- 
ent assumptions, so often repeated that it has almost taken 
on the imperial mien of an axiom, that man differs from 
the brute in that he alone is immortal. But assumptions, 
however natural or taking, are not necessarily facts. For 
ages men believed that the earth was the centre of the 
universe, and that the heavenly bodies revolved around it. 
But how gigantic, even grotesque, the lie ! Lives there 
the man who know^s — demonstrably knows — that animals 
are not immortal ? Let us not be puffed up with our own 
conceits, impounding the activities of the Limitless One in 
the tiny paddock of our own opinions : 

" There aro more tilings in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." — (" Hamlet," i. 6.) 

Ah, this mystery of Life, this problem of the Yital 
Principle common to man and animal, this riddle of the 
Psyche, this enigma of the Soul ! I do not wonder that 
men in all ages of the world have bowed down before it. 
I do not wonder that in that far-off age, when intellectual 
Egypt was mapping out the heavens and rearing her own 
mighty pyramids, she knelt before her Sacred Bull and 
Ibis and Beetle, because she believed them endowed with 
£Ouls and instinct with immortality. Do not blame pooi* 
Israel too harshly for so swiftly relapsing into the worship 
of the Calf they had seen adored in Egypt ; wretched was 
their sin, but they had a profounder reason for it than our 
proud theology is willing to recognize. To him who pon- 
ders the mystery of Life the lowest microscopic protozoan, 
hovering on the dim border between plant and animal, is 
a sublimer thing than the solar system, or an infinite uni- 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 167 

verse of dead atoms. Did you ever think how profound, 
in this connection, is the significance of the Cherubim of 
Scripture ; those wondrous beings which guarded the way 
to the Tree of Life (Gen. iii. 24), which overshadowed the 
Mercy Seat (Ex. xxv. 18), which thundered along the sky as 
the chariot on which the God of the whirlwind royally 
rode (Psalm xYiii. 10), wliich careered before the gaze of the 
Babylonian Prophet in trances of the Chebar (Ezck. i.), which 
the Exile of Patmos saw kneeling and ascribing around the 
great white throne (Rev. iv.) — Clierubim wdth the face of an 
ox and the face of an eagle and the face of a lion and the 
face of a man ? Ah, this solemn kinship of man and ani- 
mal ! 'No wonder that Israel's Lawgiver, proclaiming to 
his people the legislation dictated him from heaven, guarded 
so jealously the sacredness of animal life. Listen : " Thou 
shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk " (Ex. xxiii. 19). 
" Whether it be cow or ewe, thou shalt not kill her and 
her young both in one day " (Lev. xxii. 28). " If a bird's nest 
chance to be before thee in the way, in any tree, or on the 
ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, and the dam 
.sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, thou slialt not 
take the dam with the young " (Dcut. xxii. 6, 7). " Thou shalt 
not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the com " (Dcut. xxv. 
4 ; 1 Cor. ix. 9 ; 1 Tim. v. 18). And here I luust speak a word in 
hearty praise of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals. Remit not that gentle institution to the limbo 
of sentimentalities. It is but carrying out the merciful 
economy Divinely foreshadowed in the Mosaic Jurispru- 
dence, given to the world when humanity was yet in its 
childhood. Promptly report, then, to the proper authori- 
ties every instance of cruelty. Ah, here is the delicate, 
telling test of civilization : the way that we treat, not our 
superiors, but our inferiors. The gentleman is a gentle man. 



168 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

" I would not enter on my list of friends 
(Thougli graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
An inadvertent step may crush the snail 
That crawls at evening in the public path ; 
But he that has humanity, forewarned, 
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live." 

— (Oowpee's "Task.") 

Tlie killing of an albatross in the South Seas has laid 
the foundation for one of the most touching ballads in 
English literature. What is the " Eime of the Ancient 
Mariner " but a post's defense of the truth that animals 
have souls ? 

" Farewell, Farewell ! but this I tell 
To thee, thou Wedding Guest ! 
He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

" He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God Who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." 

" Ah, this," you tell me, " is poetry." Listen, then, to 
the calm words of that Prince of Scientists whom Chris- 
tendom not long since laid away amid the cypresses of 
Mount Auburn. I quote from that profound treatise by 
Louis Agassiz, entitled " Essay on Classification : " " Most 
of the arguments of philosophy in favor of the immortality 
of man apply equally to the permanency of the imma- 
terial principle in other living beings. May I not add that 
a future life in which man should be deprived of that 
great source of enjoyment and intellectual and moral im- 
provement, which results from the contemplation of the 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 169 

harmonies of an organic world, would involve a lamentable 
loss ? And may we not look to a spiritual concert of the 
combined worlds and all their inhabitants in presence of 
their Creator, as the highest conception of paradise ? " 

And now, to these weighty words of 
. .— ^ . emoia e ^ n^^ster of Science, let me add the 

Scripture. . t . t <» /• mi i 

weightier words of a master oi iheol- 
ogy : " I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
of no account compared with the glory which is to be re- 
vealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation 
is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God. For the 
creation was made subject to vanity, not of its own wdll^ but 
by reason of Him Who made it subject, in hoj^e that even the 
creation itself will be set free from the bondage of corruption 
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For 
we know tliat the whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
in pain together until now ; and not only so, but even 
we w^ho have the Urst-fruits of the Spirit, even we our- 
selves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the 
redemption of our body " (Rom. viii. 19-23). " Ah, poetry 
again," you tell me. Nevertheless, brother, you believe 
the rest of this glorious chapter. You exult in the eighth 
chapter of Eomans as one of the stoutest bulwarks of 
Christian theology — one of the dearest treasures of Chris- 
tian experience. You never tire of quoting the first verse : 
" There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ 
Jesus." You never tire of quoting the last verse : " I am 
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin- 
cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is 
in Christ Jesus our Lord." You believe what precedes, 
and you believe what follows ; why not believe what inter- 
8 



170 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

venes ? Yes, it is poetry — ^genuine, sublime poetry. For 
wlio is tlie poet ? Tlie man who makes melodious rhymes 
and metres ? If that is all he does, he is only a poetaster. 
The poet is the man who detects distant, recondite truth, 
and masterfully expresses it. And Panl is precisely such 
a poet. This magnificent paragraph is one of the noblest 
poetic bursts that ever fell on the ear of listening man. 
Let us dwell on it a little in detail. 

And, first : It is the picture of a sor- 
• n^-'^ ^^^^^' rowful creation: "We know that the 

ing Creation. 

whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
in pain together until now." ISTature's tones, we are told, 
are largely in the minor key. How sad, notwithstanding 
its majesty, the mournful booming, the funereal minute- 
guns, of the great surging sea ! Did you ever hear a more 
melancholy cadence than the wind of God as it sweeps 
through the sere foliage of autumn, or as it sets in weird 
tremors telegraph-wires spanning desolate regions? So, 
too, the wind and howl of the animal world is in the minor 
key: 

" I heard the wild beasts in the woods complain ; 
Some slept, while others wakened to sustain 
Through night and day the sad monotonous round, 
Half savage and half pitiful the sound. 

*' The ontcry rose to God through all the air, 

The worship of distress, an animal prayer, 

Loud vehement pleadings, not unlike to those 

Job uttered in his agony of woes." 

— (F. W. Fabee.) 

Look, again, at the abortiveness of the Creation. Be- 
hold its droughts and floods, its fires and blights, its deserts 
and earthquakes, its monstrosities and abortions, its sick- 
nesses and deaths. Behold the incessant warfare of the 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 171 

animal tribes, slaying each other almost as soon as born, 
earth's crust being largely made np of the murdered re- 
mains of those to who§e parents the Lord of the Fifth Day 
gave the breath of life, or living soul. Yerily, the Crea- 
tion hath been made subject to vanity. But must this 
abortiveness forever continue ? Shall the bar sinister never 
be removed from [N^ature's shield ? Ah, this Sphinx of the 
Animal Creation ! Where is the (Edipus who shall solve 
it ? "With what hopeful doubt and doubtful hope the 
Laureate sings it : 

" Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of Nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

'■ That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroyed. 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete ; 

" That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire. 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

" Behold, we know not anything; 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last— far off— at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring. 

" So runs my dream : but what am I? 
An infant crying in the night : 
An infant crying for the light : 
And with no language but a cry. 

" The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail beyond the grave. 
Derives it not from what we have 
The likcst God within the soul ? 



172 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

" Are God and Nature then at strife, 
That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life ; 

" That I, considering everywhere 
Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
And finding that of fifty seeds 
She often brings but one to bear : 

" I falter where I firmly trod. 

And, falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
That slope through darkness up to God, 

" I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope. 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 
And faintly trust the larger hope." 

— ("In Memokiam," liv.-lv.) 

Turn we tlien from the striip^p^linsc, 

(i.)— The Glorious . , , , .. »& »' 

_, ^ : veering poet to rest on the more sm-e 

1 roDticcy 

word of Prophecy : " The Creation was 
made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason 
of Him Who made it subject, in hope that the Creation it- 
self will be set free from the bondage of corruption into 
the liberty of the glory of the children of God." ^ot 
only man, then, but also all Creation, whereof man stands 
as the head, and sensorium, and epitome, and representa- 
tive, is to be rescued from the thralldom of decay and dis- 
solution, and emancipated into the freedom of the splendor 
of God's sons. It is a blessed vision of that coming Res- 
titution of all things (Acts iii. 21), that glorious Palingenesis, 
or Eegeneration of Nature, to which the Son of God Him- 
self alludes when, addressing His disciples, He said : " In 
the Palingenesia, in the Regeneration, when the Son of 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 173 

Man shall sit on the throne of His Glory, ye also shall sit 
on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel " 
(Matt. xix. 28). That is to Say, in that coming Regeneration 
of Nature the curse shall be lifted off from Creation, and 
earth shall be Eden again. For there are to be not only 
the new heavens, thank God, there is also to be the new 
earth — ay, a new earth, it may be, like this very earth we 
are treading, only transfigured (2 Peter iii. 13). Then in that 
day when the Lord shall return to bind up the breach of 
His peo]3le, and heal the stroke of their wound (Is. xxx. 26), 
and to make all things new again, " The w^olf shall indeed 
dw^ell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid ; and the calf, and the young lion, and the falling 
shall feed together, and a little child shall lead them ; and 
the cow and bear shall feed, their yoimg ones shall he down 
together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the 
sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the 
weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den ; 
they shall not hurt nor destroy in all His holy mountain, 
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory 
of the Lord, as the coming waters cover the sea " (Is. xi. 6-9). 
Yes, in that coming Eestitution of all things, the lion and 
the tiger, which now live only to prey on each other and 
be the dread of man, shall come trooping back again to 
man redeemed in the Second Adam, even as they had 
already gone trooping to the unfallen Adam in Eden 
(Gen. ii. 19). What though the first Adam, earth's poor Sam- 
son, grasped in his bhnduess the pillars that supported the 
temple of Nature, and, falling, pulled down all Nature 
with him ? Eartli's poor Samson shall yet hear the Ecsur- 
rection voice of the Son of God, and, " re-orient from the 
dust," shall again lift up with himself the pillars of Na- 
ture's temple. 



174 STUDIES IN THE CEEATIVE WEEK 

Observe now, finally, tlie Majestic 

ine Majestic p^^^ 
Posture. 



{€.) e I ajes ic p^^g^-j^^g . u rj^-j^^ earnest expectation of 



the Creation is waiting for the revela- 
tion of the Sons of God." The earnest expectation of the 
Creation is waiting. It is the Poet- Apostle's master-stroke : 
Weary Qreation peering forward in the yearning attitude 
of outstretched neck and hand. There is on one of the 
mountains of 'New England w^hat to me is the most mar- 
velous natural phenomenon in the world. For nearly a 
score of years, every summer that I have been this side 
the Atlantic, I have visited it ; every time I have vis- 
ited it, I have lifted my hat and bowed in its presence. 
I do not know why the Maker of heaven and earth has 
carved on the brow of the everlasting momitain that 
great stone Face of Franconia — that majestic, w^onder- 
ful Face, peering away down the glorious Pemigewasset 
Yalley, alike in sunshine and in storm-blast, day and 
night, century after century ; unless it be that that sol- 
emn Profile might represent the groaning Creation, dis- 
cerning from afar and patiently awaiting the coming Glory. 
And, as hundreds of times I have gazed on that stone 
Prophet of the Mountain, peering down the Yalley of the 
Future, I have secretly said to him : 

'' Watcliman, tell us of the night, 
What its signs of promise are ! " 

and I have heard from those venerable lips the glorious 
answer : 

" Traveler, o'er yon mountain height, 
See that glory-beaming star." 

Yes, weary Creation is patiently waiting for the mani- 
festation, the revelation, the apocalypse, of the sons of God 
— that is to say, the shining exhibition of them as God's 



GENESIS OF THE ANIMALS. 175 

sons. For man and animal, wondronsly knit together in 
the sacred kinship of the Sixth Day, are alike groaning 
under the common Curse, alike hoping under the common 
Promise. All creatiofi is in sympathy with the Church of 
the li\dng God, in waiting for the disclosure of the Glory 
which is wrajDped up in the sonship to the everlasting 
Father and the joint heirship with Jesus Christ, His eter- 
nal Son (Rom. viii. 11). Well, then, may those representa- 
tives of Creation, the four Living Creatures of the Apoca- 
lyptic Vision of Patmos, join with the blood-washed throng 
in the chorus of redemption, resting neither day nor night, 
chanting : Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, Who was, 
and is, and is to come ! (Rev. iv. 8). Then, in that day of 
Apocalypse shall the sad symphony of Time's dirges give 
way to the glad sjmiphony of Eternity's paeans. Even now 
let us pray, as j)rayed the grand, blind bard of the English 
Commonwealth : " Come forth out of Thy royal chambers, 
O Prince of all the kings of the earth ! Put on the visi- 
ble robes of Thy imperial Majesty ! Take up the unlim- 
ited sceptre which Thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed 
Thee ! For now the voice of Thy Bride calleth Thee, and 
all creatures sigh to be renewed ! " (Milton's Trose Works). 
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus ! Come quickly ! (Rev. xxii. 20). 
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE X. 



GENESIS OF MAN . 



" And God said : Let us make man in Our image, after Our like- 
ness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and 
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God 
created man in His image, in the image of God created He him ; male 
and female created He them." — Genesis i. 26, 27. 

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life : and man became a liv- 
ing soul." — Genesis ii. 17. 

In tlie Introductory Lecture it wus 
A • h' T f 11 I'eniarked that, altliongli tlie story of 
the Creative Week bears the name of 
the " Mosaic Record," it is not necessary to believe that 
Moses himself was the literal author of it. As was then 
observed, there is strong reason for believing that the Ar- 
chive had already long existed in the form of a sacred, 
inspired Tradition, and that Moses, accepting it as Divine, 
simply incoi'porated it into his Preface to his Pentateuch, 
thus making it a part of his own chronicle. A scrutiny of 
the Creation Archive, as given ns in the first two chapters 
of Genesis, shows ns that it is manifestly twofold : tlie 
first a very ancient document, extending through the first 
chapter and including the first three verses of the second, 



GENESIS OF MAN. 177 

setting forth the process of Creation under its general as- 
pect, and representing the Creator by His general title — 
Elohim, or God, Deity ; the second account comprising 
the rest of the second chapter, a later document, occupied 
mainly witli the story of the Creation of Man, and repre- 
senting the Creator by Plis particular, Hebrew title, Jeho- 
vah Elohim, or Lord God. It may be that the first account 
had come down from Adam himself, and that the second 
account has Moses for its literal author ; the first Archive 
being a Prologue, the second Archive being the first chap- 
ter of the History of Mankind. However this be, enough 
that Moses has incorj)orated the two accounts into his own 
story, so that it is strictly correct to speak of them as the 
Mosaic Eecord. I have alluded to this matter because the 
account of the Genesis of Man is evidently twofold : the 
first a general, the second a specific. Let me then read to 
you the two Archives. The first is this : " And God said : 
' Let us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness : and 
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all 
the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth 
upon the earth.' So God created the Man in His image, 
in the image of God created He him ; male and female 
created He them. And God blessed them ; and God said 
to them : ' Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the cartli, 
and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over 
the fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that 
moveth upon the earth.' .... And it was so. And God 
saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. 
And there was evening and there was morning, a Sixth 
Day" (Gon. i. 2G-31). The other Archive reads thus : "ISTow 
tliere was yet no plant of the field in the earth, and no 
herb of the field had yet sprung up : for Jcliovah God had 



178 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

not yet caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no 
man to till the ground : and there went np a mist from the 
earth, and it w^atered all the face of the ground. And Je- 
hovah God formed the Man of dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the Man 
became a living soul. . . . And Jehovah God caused a 
deep sleep to fall upon the Man, and he slept : and He 
took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead there- 
of. And of the rib which He took from the Man, Jeho- 
vah God formed a Woman, and brought her to the Man " 

(Gen. ii. 5-22). 

Reserving for a special study the 
, — an 01 am a g^Qj,„ ^^ ^^^q Genesis of Woman, let us 
of Lraergent Man. -^ _ ^ . i t r^ i 

occupy ourselves to-day with the btudy 

of the Genesis of Man. According to our w^ont, let us 
first ascend again the Mount of Panoramic Yision, and 
gaze with the inspired Seer on the unfolding scene of 
Emergent Man. What though the Breath of God is mov- 
ing over the waste, ebon abyss, beginning to resolve Chaos 
into Cosmos ? 'No human being is there to rejoice over 
the birth of Order. What though the light of chemical 
activity suffuses the inchoate universe ? No human being 
is there to feel its quickening warmth. What though the 
arching sky has separated the mighty mass into the heavens 
and the earth ? No human being is there to feel his spirit 
broadening and soaring with the swelling welkin. What 
though the waters have retreated to their appointed places, 
and the dry lands have emerged ? No human being is 
there to sail over the mighty main, or to climb the inspir- 
ing mountain. What though the fern branches, and the 
grass waves, and the palm towers, and the rose blushes, 
and the vine fruits ? No human being is there to enjoy 
the shapes and hues, or scent the odors, or taste the fruits. 



GENESIS OF MAN. 179 

What tliougli the siin blazes, and the moon beams, and the 
stars twinkle ? JSTo human being is there to behold their 
glory, or, watching their risings and settings, to take note 
of time. What though sea, air, and land teem w^itli living 
creatures ? No Imman being is there to give to them 
names, or to rule over them. All has been preparing for 
Man ; all is now ready for Man ; but Man himself is not. 
And now is heard once more the Omnific Word : " We 
will make Man in Our image, after Our likeness ; and 
they shall rule over the fish of the sea, and over the bird 
of the heavens, and over the cattle of the lands, and over 
all the earth." And, lo, a Form like to that of the Son of 
God stoops down, and, taking in His hand some of the 
dust of the soil, He moulds it into a figure like to His own 
Divine Self, and, placing His hands against the new hands, 
and His mouth against the new mouth, He breathes into 
the new nostrils His own life breath ; and, lo ! the dust , 
figure becomes, like the animals around him, a living soul ; 
ay, more than a living soul, even a Man, becoming, in very 
virtue of having been Divinely inbreathed, the Creator's 
Inspiration and Image and Son. Such is the vision of 
Emergent Man. And now let us attend to some of the 
details of the majestic j)icture. 

And, first : Man the Image of God. 
IIL-Man God^s q^^j g^j^ . " We will make Man in Our 
J mage. 

image, after Our likeness." 

But wdiat is meant by the Ima2:c 
,, ^■-^''''\ ^Y''^ and Likeness of God ? Without loiter- 

the Image of God. . i n i i 

ing amid the subtilties of tlie School- 
men, let us take a shorter, simpler, truer method, even the 
answer expressly given in Holy Writ itself. Would you 
know what is meant by the Image of God ? Then gaze 
on Jesus the Nazarene, Who is the Image of the invisible 



180 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

God (Col. i. 15), the brightness of Ilis Glory and express 
Image of His Person, or Impress of His Being (iieb. i. 2). 
Without presuming to define with theological accuracy 
these expressions, without venturing to discuss their bear- 
ings on that profound, ineffable Mystery of the Christian 
Church — the Blessed and Adorable Trinity : distinctly 
disclaiming all attempts at preciseness of theological state- 
ment : it is enough to say that, practically, in the realm of 
personal apprehension and experience, Jesus of J^azareth 
is the Discloser of the Creator, the Bevelation of the 
Father, the Representation of Deity, the Image of the in- 
visible God. And He becomes this in and by the fact of 
His Incarnation. I would not, especially on such high 
themes, be wise above what is written. It is but a con- 
jecture, yet a conjecture seemingly well founded, that In- 
finite God can become knowable to man only through the 
intervention of some medium, or means of intercommuni- 
cation. Even earthly things become knowable to us only 
through the medium of the senses, visible things becom- 
ing visible through the sense of sight, audible things au- 
dible through the sense of hearing, tangible things tangible 
through the sense of touch. Let one be born without 
senses, and he is born without sense, actual or possible. 
How much less then can the infinite, spiritual God become 
known to us except through media ! He is expressly de- 
clared to be the invisible God, dwelling in light which no 
man can approach unto. Whom no man hath seen or can 
see (1 Tim. vi. 16). If ever apprehensible, then, to finite 
worlds. He must become so through some kind of incarna- 
tion, or revelation through finite conditions. And all this, 
be it observed, irrespective of the fact of sin. If, then, 
mediation was needed before the entrance of evil, how 
much more since ! And the Incarnation meets the necessity. 



GENESIS OF MAN. 181 

" 'No man liath seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him, made Him known, interpreted Him, made exegesis 
of Him " (John i. 18). Not that God was not known before. 
Prophets and Patriarchs knew Him and walked with Him. 
But even then He was known only through mediations, 
snch as Shechinah and Covenant Angel. Even in the be- 
ginning was the Word, or God in articulation, and the 
AVord was with God, and the Word was God (Joim i. i). If 
yon ask me in what figure or condition the Precreative 
Word existed, I cannot answer ; for I have not been told. 
Nor is it necessary that I should know ; finiteness in some 
direction or another, not a human figure or a definite shape, 
is an essential of mediation. Enough that I know that in 
process of the Divine Kevelation the Word, Who in the be- 
ginning was and was with God and was God, became flesh, 
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His Glory, the Glory 
as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and 
tmth (John i. M). The God hitherto syllabled and partially 
and intermittently glimpsed in Covenant Angel and She- 
chinah, henceforth became completely and permanently 
visible in the Man of ]N"azareth. The invisible God be- 
came visible through Incarnation ; i. e., through God's in- 
vesting Himself with a human spirit and soul and body, 
and so becoming finite in a human person. For what was 
the overshadowing of the Virgin of ^N'azareth by the Holy 
Ghost (Luke i. 35) but the miraculous conception of a finite, 
spiritual nature, to be taken up, or incorporated — how, we 
can never tell — into the Person of the Divine Son, and to 
be, because a finite, spiritual nature and so apprehensible, 
the Image of that invisible One Who is Spirit ? In the 
I^azarene's spiritual afiinities and kinship with the Eternal 
One as felt and expressed in human terms — in terms of 



182 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the l^azarene's sense of right, rectitude, equity, reverence, 
trust, communion, harmony with the unseen and eter- 
nal Yerities — in these we see the Image of Him "Whom no 
man hath seen or can see, because He is Spirit (John iv. 24). 
Again : a spiritual nature must needs have what I may 
venture to call secular attributes — attributes of sensibility, 
cognition, faculties of instrumentation, etc. So, also, in 
the secular attributes of Christ's human personality ; in 
His memory and reason and imagination and judgment, 
in His perceptions of beauty, in His loves and trusts and 
joys and griefs — we have hints and suggestions and par- 
ables of the character of Him Who, because infinite, must 
be supposed to be eternally outside the range of finite 
powers and sensibilities. It is through these that we know 
God ; and so Christ is the Image of God. Once more : a 
human personality, at least while in this world, must needs 
have a body ; that is to say, a vehicle and instrument of 
life. It is not only in and through the body that we live : 
it is in and through the body, e. g., through the inlets and 
outlets of the senses, that moral character is elicited. Em- 
bodiment, incarnation, was as essential to Christ's being the 
Image of God as was spirituality. He must not only be 
conceived by the Holy Ghost ; He must also be born into 
the sphere of matter. Thus in His taking on Himself a 
human spirit and soul and body, Jesus Christ became to 
man the Manifestation of Deity. The unseen God was, 
so to speak, elicited into ^dsibility through the attritions of 
barriers, or the limits of a finite condition. The Incarnate 
Son, in and by the very fact of His Incarnation, became a 
visible Image of the invisible God, because, O infinite 
paradox, in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily (Col. ii. 9). In Him we see, as we could have no 
otherwise seen or conceived, God's Holiness, Eectitude, 



GENESIS OF MAN. 183 

Love, Magnanimity, Patience, Joy, Grief, Truth, Glory. 
For auglit I know, this is the reason why Holy Scripture 
calls Him the Son of_^od ; for sonship is imageship. In 
Christ's own deeds and words and character — in the par- 
ables and hints and suggestions of His own incarnate 
career — we do indeed behold the Image of the invisible 
God, the Brightness from the Father's Glory, the express 
Image of His Person. The last night He was on earth as 
the Man of Sorrows, while He and the eleven were still 
reclining at the Paschal Table, Philip said to Him : " Lord, 
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Jesus said to 
him : " Have I been so long time with you — have I spoken 
and wrought and lived before you aU these months' and 
years — and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip ? He 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; how is it then 
that thou sayest, ' Show us the Father ? ' " (John xiv. s-io). 
Thus was the Son of Mary God's Prophet, speaking for 
Him, translating Him into human apprehension and state- 
ment. In a single Scriptural, all-comprehending term, 
Jesus Christ was God's Word. And this just because He 
was incarnated, the Word made flesh. For this end was 
He born, and for this end came He into the world, that 
He might bear witness unto the Truth (John xviii. aV). And 
the one Truth of the immensities is this : God. Would 
you then know what is meant by the Image and Likeness 
of God ? Then gaze on Jesus the I^azarcnc. In Eccc 
Homo is Ecce Deus. 

And now we are prepared for a sec- 
2 -Man the Imago ^^^ ^^,^^^|^ . ^^ j^g^^g Q^irkt is the Image 

of Jesus Christ. n r^ i Tvr -.i • j-x 

01 God, so Man is the image oi Jesus 
Christ. " In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth " (Gen. i. i). " In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and tlie Word was God : aU 



184 STUDIES IN THE CREATIV^E WEEK. 

tilings were made tliroiigli Him, and witliont Him was not 
anything made that hath been made " (John i, 1-3). The 
"God-Said" of the first chapter of Genesis is then the 
" God-Word " of the first chapter of John. Knowing all 
things from the beginning, predetermining all things ere 
as yet there was Incarnation, or Fall, or Man, or Earth, or 
Seraph ; foreseeing that as Incarnate He wonld add to His 
eternal Godhead a human spirit and sonl and body, the 
Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. xiii. 8), 
makes solemn annunciation, using, as it would seem, the 
imperial plural : " We will make Man in Our image, after 
Our likeness." In the order of time, the Son of God made 
Himself like to Man ; in the order of purpose, the Son of 
God made Man like to Himself. It was an august illus- 
tration of His own saying when Incarnate : " The first shall 
be last, and the last first " (Matt. xx. 16). Do you ask in what 
respect Man was made in the image of Christ ? Evidently, 
I answer, in substantially the same respects in which Christ 
became the Image of God. Thus : In respect to a spiritual 
nature : When Jehovah God had formed the Man of dust 
of the ground. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life. The language, of course, is figurative. ISTevertheless 
it must mean something. What, then, does this inbreath- 
ing by the Creator mean, if not the mysterious communi- 
cation of Himself — the eternal Air or Spirit — into Man ? 
As Christ, surveyed man-wise, was born of the Spirit in 
I^azareth, so Man, made in His Image, after His Likeness, 
was born of the Spirit in Eden. Again : a spiritual nature 
necessarily involves personality; and personality, at least 
finite, as necessarily involves what I have called secular 
attributes, e. g., attributes of sensation, cognition, passion, 
action, etc. All these belonged to Christ; and through 
these He declared and interpreted the Father, being in 



GENESIS OF MAN. 185 

very triitli the Word of God, or Deity in articulation. And 
tlie Word has existed from the beginning, being the God- 
Said of the Creative Week. In man's potencies of what- 
ever kind — moral, inlcllectual, emotional, aesthetic — what- 
ever powder or virtue or grace there may be — in all this we 
behold an image of the Lord from heaven. Once more : 
personality cannot, at least in this world, exist apart from 
embodiment, or some kind of incarnation, which shall be 
to it for sphere and vehicle and instrument. Some kind 
of body is needed which, by its avenues and organs, shall 
awaken, disclose, and perfect character. And as Christ's 
body vehicled and organed His Personality, and so enabled 
Ilim to manifest the fullness of the Godhead which dwelt 
in Him body-wise, so Man's body was made in the image 
of Christ's, even that Body which in His eternal fore- 
knowledge was eternally His. This, then, was the Image 
in wdiich Man was created, the Image of Christ's human 
Personality, or Christ's spirit and soul and body. Man is 
the image of Christ and Christ is the Image of God ; that 
is to say : Man is the image of the Image of God, or God's 
Image as seen in secondary reflection. 

But I hear an objection. " All this," 
(a.) -The Image ^^^^ a jg ^ruc of the unfallcu 

Defaced, not Effaced. -^ \ 

Adam only ; but Adam has lallen ; sure- 
ly his sinful children are not made in God's Image." Yes, 
they are, I dare reply. It is this precise thing that Adam's 
cliildren are still made in the Image of God, wdiich makes 
them more than animals, even children of the Father celes- 
tial. Centuries after Adam's fall, God, in renewing to 
Noah Adam's charter, forbids murder on the expressly- 
mentioned ground that Man was made in the Image of 
God : " Whoso sheddeth Man's blood, by Man shall his 
blood be shed : for in the Image of God made He Man " 



183 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

(Gen. ix. 6). Other centuiies roll away, and an apostle warns 
ns against sins of tlie tongne on precisely this same ground, 
that Man is made in the Image of God : " With the tongne 
bless we the Lord and Father, and with the tongue curse 
we men, who are made after the likeness of God " (James iii. 9). 
True, the Image of God has been terribly marred. Sin, 
the corroding, dissolving force that it is, has wellnigh ob- 
literated the Divine lineaments as they beamed forth in 
Eden. When we look at the awful guilt of the heathen 
world, ay, when we note the crimes and vices and ungodli- 
ness of civilized society around us, we feel that Man, like 
Moses, does indeed need a veil ; but, alas ! it is to hide, not 
his splendor, but his shame. Nevertheless, this image of 
God in Man, although so terribly marred, has not been en- 
tirely erased. Fearfully defaced, it has not been totally 
effaced. Deep down the grades of our fallen humanity, in 
the very lowest and guiltiest of our race, a generous vision 
shall detect, beneath wreck and rubbish, at least some dim 
sense of right, some faint idea of duty, some incipient, 
nebulous yearning after better things. And these and such 
as these are fragments, tiny and blurred indeed, neverthe- 
less real fragments of the Divine Effigy. And these and 
such as these are the prophets of hope, the human basis for 
tlie possibility of human redemption and perfectation. 

And this leads to the remark tliat 
( ,)— nsts I IS- Qj-^p^g^?g mission, surveyed on its human 
sioa a Restoration. . n . i i i -r^ n^ 

Side, IS to restore the shattered Emgy. 
The Incarnation, in its general sense, was to mediate be- 
tween God the Infinite and Man a finite. The Incarna- 
tion, in its specific sense, was to bring back Man from his 
apostasy, and reinstate him in God's full Image. This is 
that promised era, even those times of Restitution of all 
things, which God has spoken by the mouth of His holy 



GENESIS OF MAN. 187 

prophets since tlie world began (Acts. iii. 21). And this res- 
toration of the blurred Image is a process, continuing 
through aeons or Dispensations. It begins in this world 
seon : Put off the old man with liis deeds, and jDut on the 
new man, who is being renewed in knowledge and righte- 
ousness and holiness after the Image of Him Who created 
him (Eph. iv. 22-24 ; Col. iii. 9, 10). It wiU be Continued in the 
life to come, seon without end : Our citizenship is in the 
heavens ; whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord 
Jesus Christ ; Who will transfigure the body of our humili- 
ation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory 
(Phil. iii. 20, 21). And this is the consummation of Eedemp- 
tion, ay, of eternal Predestination. Whom He doth fore- 
know. He also doth foreordain to be conformed to the 
Image of His Son, that He may be the first-born among 
many brethren (Rom. \iii. 29). If God became Manlike in 
Christ, it was that Man might become in Christ God- 
like, filled unto all the fullness of God, even the meas- 
ure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. iii. 19 ; iv. 13), 
in Whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily 
(Col. ii. 9). 

Such, then, was the Origin of Man as given us in the 
first Creation Archive. " God created the Man in His 
Image : in the Image of God created He him ; a male and 
a female created He them." 

And now let us ponder briefly the 

.— an o s g^^Q^^ Archive : " Jehovah God formed 
Inspiration. 

the Man from dust of the ground, and 

breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Man was 

a living soul " ' (Gen. ii. T). Let us ponder these clauses a little 

> Compare the curious tnidition of that rcmarkahlc j^cople— the Karens : " God took a 
small piece of His own life, blew into the nostrils of Uis son and daughter, and they became 
living beings, and were really human." 



188 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

in detail. And, first, " Jehovah God formed the Man from 
dust of the ground." It is as true to-day as it was in that 
far-oif yore when the inspired Seer beheld the vision of the 
Emergent Man. However various the opinions of scien- 
tists touching the Mosaic Story of Creation, they all agree 
at least on this point : Man's body is composed of the same 
chemical elements as the soil on which he treads. Dust 
he is : for out of dust was he taken, and unto dust does lie 
return (Gen. iii. 19). The meaning of this very term, Adam, 
is clay, soil, earth : " There was no man to till the ground, 
no Adam to till Adamah " (Gen. ii. 5). Yes, the first Man 
was of the earth, earthy.^ But, thank God, Man was to be 
something more than an organized mass of dust. That 
statue of clay was to become vital, vehicular, instrumental. 
And so we read, secondly : God " breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life, the life breath." Or, as Elihu, Son of 
Barachel, phrases it : " The Spirit of God made me, and 
the Breath of the Almighty gave me life " (Job xxxiii. 4). The 
language, as on all such high themes, is of course figura- 
tive, and, as we have seen, panoramic, to be taken chiefly 
in way of hint. But the figure must be the figure of 
something. What, then, is the truth which underlies the 
figure, and, impregnating it, glorifies it ? "What does this 
inbreathing by the Creator signify, if not the communi- 
cating, in some way augustly inscrutable, of the Creator 
Himself — even the Eternal Breath or Spirit into Man : 
Godhead into Manhead: the Divine Afilation becoming, 
so to speak, a human sufilation : God's expiration, Man's 
inspiration ? And now, thirdly : " Man became (or, as the 
verb might have been rendered, perhaps as correctly, was) 
a living soul." Accordingly, the passage afiirms three in- 

^ How interesting, in light of this, the study of such words as humus, homo, human, 
humanity, posthumous, autochthon, etc. ! 



GENESIS or MAN. 189 

dependent, yet coordinate facts. At tlie one extreme we 
have the Body, formed of dust of the ground ; at the other 
extreme we have the Spirit, inbreathed by the Holy One : 
connecting the two, acting as the nidus for them to dwell 
in, holding them, so to speak, in solution, we have the 
Soul, or vital and sentient principle common to Man and 
animal. I do not, then, regard the " living soul " as a con- 
sequent or product of the union of body and spirit : Man 
would have been a " living soul " had he received from 
God no spirit, or inbreathing, just as the animals around 
him, and created on the same day with him, were " living 
souls." E"o, Man's peculiarity, as distinguished from ani- 
mal, comes out in the second statement of our passage : 
God " breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." I lay 
no very special stress on the phrase rendered " breath of 
life " considered by itself, although I believe that an ex- 
amination of all the passages in which it occurs wdll show 
that it is invariably applied to God or Man, never to ani- 
mal. But I do lay special stress on the verb rendered 
" breathed ; " a mysterious act of Deity, w^liich, whatever 
it may mean, is never asserted in connection with brutes. 
Man alone has the inspiration of Deity. This is the august 
peculiarity which separates him discretively and everlast- 
ingly from the animal creation. Ay, this Divine inbreath- 
ing it is which converts Man's body into the temple of the 
Holy Ghost (i Cor. vi. 19) — the Divine Breath, which makes 
Man himself God's image, God's likeness, God's son. Yes, 
Chrysostom was right when he exclaimed : " The true 
Shechinah is Man." ' 

Such, then, is the Origin of Man as given us in tlie 

> For more extended observations on Man's threefold nature, the author may bo per- 
mitted to refer to his articles on tlie " Scriptural Anthropology" in the Baptist Quarterly, 
vol. i.. pp. 170-190, 825-340, 42?-444. It is but fair, however, to stito that, while ho still 
holds the outlines of the theory there maintained, he would now modify some of the details. 



190 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Second Arcliive. Infinite Deity was his Maker. On liis 
body side he sprang from dnst : on his soul side he sprang 
up with the animals: on his spirit side he sprang from 
God. Thus, in his very beginning, in the original make- 
up of him, Man was a Religious Being. Coming into ex- 
istence as God's Inbreathing, Man was, in the very fact of 
being Divinely inbreathed, God's Son and Image. Well 
then might Man's first home be an Eden — ^type of Heaven, 
and his First Day God's Seventh Day — even the Creator's 
Sabbath. 

V — Tl P -'^ -1 ^^^^ "^-^^^ ponder the Mighty Char- 

Oommission. ^^^ • " -^^^ ^^^ blessed them, and God 

said to them : ^ Be fruitful, and multi- 
ply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion 
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over every living thing that moveth on the earth.' " 

It was Man's original Commission, 

i^y oT^r Nature!' °'' H^^anity's primal Charter. And His- 
tory is the story of the execution of the 
Commission, Civilization the unfolding of the privileges of 
the Charter. Wherever civilized man has gone, there he 
has been gaining dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
the fowl of the air, and every living thing that m-oveth on 
the earth, ay, subduing earth itseK. See, e. g., how ho 
makes the fish feed him, and the sheep clothe him, and 
the horse draw him, and the ox plough for him, and the 
fowl of the air furnish him with quills to write his philos- 
ophies and his epics. All this was prophesied when Jeho- 
vah God brought every beast of the field and every bird of 
the air to the Man in Eden, to see what he would call 
them ; and the Man gave names to them all (Gen., ii. 19, 20). 
Again : see Man's supremacy over the face of E'ature ; see, 
e. g., how he dikes out the ocean, as in Holland; and 



GENESIS OF MAN. 191 

opens up liarbors, as at Port Said ; and digs canals, as at 
Suez ; and explodes submarine reefs, as in East liiver ; 
and builds roads, as over St. Gothard ; and spans rivers, as 
the St. Lawrence ; an^^retclies railways, as from Atlantic 
to Pacific ; see how he reclaims mountain-slopes and heaths 
and jungles and deserts and pestilential swamps, bringing 
about interchanges of vegetable and animal life, and even 
mitigating climates, so that here, at least, Man may be said 
to be the creator of circumstances rather than their creature. 
Again : see Man's supremacy over the forces and resources 
of ISTature; see how he subsidizes its mineral substances, 
turning its sands into lenses, its clay into endless blocks of 
brick, its granite into stalwart abutments, its iron into 
countless shapes for countless purposes, its gems into dia- 
dems ; see how he subsidizes its vegetable products, making 
its grains feed him, its cottons clothe him, its forests house 
him, its coals warm him. See how he subsidizes the 
mechanical powers of Nature, making its levers lift his 
loads, its wheels and axles weigh his anchors, its pulleys 
raise his weights, its inclined planes move his blocks, its 
w^edges split his ledges, its screws propel his ships. See 
how he subsidizes the I^atural Forces, making the air waft 
his crafts, the water run his mills, the heat move his en- 
gines, the electricity bear his messages, turning the very 
gravitation into a force of buoyancy. Yerily, Thou makest 
Man to have dominion over the works of Thine hands; 
Thou dost put all things under his feet ; sheep and oxen, 
all of them ; yea, and the beasts of the field, the birds of 
the air, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the 
seas (Psalm viii. G-9). What a magnificent illustration of all 
this was our own glorious International Exposition of 1876 ! 
Ay, these and such as these are the majestic foot-prints of 
Man's triumphal progress through time. And these tri- 



192 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

umplis are but prophecies of possibilities still more mag- 
nificent. Listen to the vaticination of the dreamer before 
Locksley Hall : 

"For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, 
Saw the Yision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; 
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly hales ; 
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew. 
From the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue ; 
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm. 
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm ; 
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled, 
In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the world." 

— ("Locksley Hall.") 

But whether the Laureate's dream of aerial navigation 
be true or not, this thing is certain : Every day discloses 
some new force, or, at least, some new applicability of 
force. We know not what majestic possibilities are still 
wrapped up in oxygen and nitrogen, in air and water, in 
heat and light, in electricity and magnetism. It may be 
that as Man has already subsidized the zephyr, so he will 
3^et subsidize the hurricane ; as he has already utilized the 
descending brook, so he will yet utilize the rising tide ; as 
he has already made the lightning his servitor, so he will 
yet manipulate the very ether itself. Such is Humanity's 
Magna Charta. All is in right of Eden's majestic Com- 
mission : " Fill the earth and subdue it." 

„ V . Af 1 ^ But in whose name shall Man ad- 

2.— Yet Man but 
Yieeroy. minister the mighty Domain ? Li his 

own name, or in Another's? In An- 
other's, most surely, even in the name of Him in Whose 
Image he is made. The Son of God alone is King, and 
Man is but His Viceroy ; viceroy because His Inspiration 



GENESIS OF MAN. 193 

and Image. Man holds tlie estate of earth in fief ; his only 
right the right of usufruct. Talents he has ; but they are 
intrusted talents (Matt. xxv. 14-30). A Vineyard he tills; 
but it is a leased Yimrfard (Luke xx. 9-1 6). O my country- 
men, beware of sacrificing to your own nets and burning 
incense to your own seines (ilab. i. IG). Self -worship here 
is self-murder. For where are the master nations of an- 
tiquity, the Babel-builders of Babylonia, the pyramid- 
rearers of Egypt, the mariners of Phoenicia, the philos- 
ophers of Greece, the statesmen of Bome? How their 
story illustrates and confirms the Lord's own solemn teach- 
ing : A Yineyard appropriated is a Yineyard forfeited ! 
(Matt. xxi. 33-43). ]S'o, the Only secret of our permanence as 
a nation is the sense of Trusteeship, administering Nature, 
not as monarch, but as the Image of the Son of God, and 
so His Yiceroy. 

Such is the Stoiy of the Genesis of Man. 

VL— Concluding Looking back on our course of 
Observations. thought, I ask you : 

1. — Jesus Christ j^jj-st of all, to note again Whose is 

the Archetypal Man. ^^^^ j^^^^ .^ ^^^.^^^ ^^^^ ^.^^ ^^^^^^^ . 

it is the Image of Him AVhose goings had been from of old, 
from the days of eternity (Micah v. i), but Who became 
fiesh in Bethlehem of Judea. Yes, Jesus Christ is the 
Original, Archetypal Man. From Him humanity w^as 
modeled: Jesus the Form, mankind the figure. The 
Ancient of Days was the Man of men, the universal Man, 
blending in Himself all races, sexes, ages, temperaments. 
Holy Scripture does not call Him "A Son of Man;" 
neither does it call Him " The Son of Men ; " but it calls 
Him " The Son of Man," The Son of Mankind, The Son 
of Human J^ature. As such, Jesus Christ was Humanity 
in epitome and embryonic outline, the Primal, Archetypal 
9 



194 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Man. And now we may understand, at least in some 
slight measure, sncli wonderful expressions as the follow- 
ing : " The First-born among many brothers " (Rom. viii. 29) ; 
" The First-begotten before all creation " (Col. i. 15) ; " The 
Beginning of the creation of God " (Rev. iii. 14). 

2.— Man's Incom- Secondly : Man's Unutterable Worth, 
parable Dignity. His starting-point is the Eternal, In- 
finite One. 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting. 

And Cometh from afar : 
ISTot in entire forgetfulness. 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, Who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! " 

— (WOEDSWOETH.) 

Ay, here is the discretive index which separates Man 
essentially and everlastingly from animals ; it is his capaci- 
ty for Inspiration and Imageship. Here is the true and 
only safeguard against materialism, the one stout cable 
that chains us in glorious thrall to the eternal, shining 
Throne. May the same Son of God, Who breathed into 
the First Man the Breath of Life, thus making him in His 
own Image, after His own likeness, breathe upon us all 
to-day, saying : " Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost," the Divine 
Breath ! (John xx. 22). So shall we be restored in the Image 
of Him Who created us. A genuine coin, stamped in effi- 
gy of Kaiser or President, is worth what it represents. 
Man, stamped in the effigy of the King of kings and Lord 
of lords, is worth, let me dare say it, what he represents, 
even Deity. Little lower than the angels, little lower than 



GENESIS OF MAN. 195 

Eloliim, did Eloliim make liim (Psalm viii. 5). All this ex- 
plains why this earth, cosmically so tiny, morally is so 
vast. Jesns Christ came not to save the worthless. He 
came to save Divine Tmageship : that is to say, all Godlike 
potentialities. He came to save Divine Imageship itself. 
I never read the closing words of St. Lnke's Genealogy of 
our Lord without a thrill of awe in remembrance of the 
sublimity of my parentage. Listen : " Who was the son of 
Enoch, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, 
who was the son of God" (Luke iii. 38). Contrast that Pa- 
ternity with the ancestry allowed lis by the evolutionists : ^ 

" That was, to this, 
Hyperion to a satyr." — ("Hamlet," i. 2.) 

3.-lmasoship the Thirdly: we see wherein the Unity 
Die of Race Unity. ^^ the Eace truly consists. The ques- 
tion whether the Origin of Man w\as 
single or plural is, as you well know, one of the questions 
now engaging the attention of Ethnologists. For myself, 
I believe that the race, as Holy Scripture seems to teach, 
has descended from a single Pair. But suppose that it 
should hereafter be j^roved that there were a hundred 
original Adams and Eves, the discovery would not affect 
the true Unity of the Race. The unity is not so much 
genealogical as moral ; not in blood, but in Imageship ; 
not in the first Adam, but in the Second. As there is but 
one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and 
we through Him (i Cor. viii. 6) ; so there is but one Die, 
one Mintage, one Humanity ; every man the kinsman of 

J The reader may be surprised that I have not discussed the 0rij»in of Man in the 
li^'lit of the Evolution Hypothesis. My reasons for not doing so are two : Fii-st, I havo 
ah-cady discussed that Hypothesis in Lectures vii. and ix. ; secondly, I did not wish to 
alloy the majesty of the Creation Archive with the dross of speculation. For a masterly 
monograph on Anthropology, see President M, B, Anderson's article on Man, in Johnson's 
" Cyclopaedia." 



196 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

every other ; Mankind brothered in the one monld of the 
Creative Word. Yes, profound is that word, " Mankind." 
It means two things : first, men are kind-ed, kinned, in the 
creative, common Die of the Sixth Day ; and secondly, all 
life, whether vegetal, animal, or hnman, yields after its kind ; 
and, therefore, Man, created in the Image of God, yields 
men after his kind ; i. e., Man-kind. May it ever be ours to 
recognize lovingly every hnman being, whether Caucasian or 
Mongolian, as a member of Mankind, and so our Kinsman ! 
When all men do this. Mankind will not only be the same 
as Humanity ; Mankind will also have Humanity. 

Fourthly : we see the secret of Man's 
^ ^;~^/''°''^T'^'' Coming Triumph: it is Imageship. 

Basis of Triumph. ^_ ° .^_ -, n.^ • ^^ ? 

"We will make Man m Our Image, 
after Our Likeness : and they shall rule over the fish of 
the seas, and over the bird of the heavens, and over the 
cattle of the lands, and over all the earth." Jesus Christ 
is the Image of God ; as such. He is the Lord of all. Man- 
kind is Christ's Image lost. The Church is Christ's Image 
restored : as such, she, like her Image, is Lord of all. All 
things are hers ; whether Paul, or ApoUos, or Cephas, or 
the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things 
to come : all are hers ; and she is Christ's ; and Christ is 
God's (1 Cor. iii. 21-23). Even now, this universe of God, 
these atoms and skies and seas and lands and plants and 
stars and beasts and men, are pouring forth their treasures 
at the feet of the Bride and Queen-Consort of the King 
of kings. The Church of the living God is the real power 
administering behind Earth's thrones and Nature's royal- 
ties. The vision of the Exile of Patmos is being fulfilled : 
The earth is helping the Woman (Rev. xii. 16), Christ's Lady 
Elect. For her the sun rises and the rains fall ; the winds 
waft and the waves bear ; the soils fruit and the mines 



GENESIS OF MAX. 197 

yield ; chemical agencies loose and gravitation binds ; civ- 
ilization, science, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, 
arts, wealth, brawn, brain — all E^ature, from Alcyone to 
atom, are harnessed lis^ swift-footed steeds to her chariot, 
bearing her on from conquering to conquer, until Kighte- 
ousness finds her Paradise in the new earth domed by the 
new heavens (2 Peter iii. 13). Go forth, then, my country- 
men, and all ye sons of Adam, go forth in right of Eden's 
Image Charter, and subdue the earth. Yea, go on with 
your gigantic enterprises, capturing and marshaling the 
forces of Nature, changing her very face, leveling her 
mountains, raising her valleys, spanning her continents 
with your railways, mingling her oceans through your 
canals : go on ; for in so doing you are really obeying a 
power mightier than your own, and are preparing in the 
wilderness the way of the Lord, and casting up in the des- 
ert a highway for our returning God (Is. xl. 5). Ay, that 
will be the true Triumphal Entry when, amid the kneel- 
ing ranks of the nations waving their palm-branches, and 
shouting hosannas to the Son of David (Matt. xxi. i-io), the 
Jerusalem of a restored earth shall lift up her gates, even 
her everlasting doors, and let the King of Glory in (Psalm 
xxiv. 7-10). Oh, friend, would you be a sharer in that com- 
ing Entry and Triumph ? Then be joined, even this mo- 
ment, by a personal, living union with Jesus Christ, the 
Image of God, and therefore the Heir of all the ages and 
all the worlds (Heb. i. 3). And then, when He does re- 
turn, as return most surely He will, to make His true Tri- 
umphal Entry, before thee also shall tlie animal creation 
kneel, the stars dip, the forests stoop, the moimtains bow, 
the skies bend, the molecules crouch, the atoms file, all 
powers of ISTature salaam. And they will bow before thee 
because on thy brow sparkles the twofold crown, even the 



198 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

diadem and the mitre, of one wlio, as created in the Image 

and recreated in the Likeness of God's Incarnate Son, is 

anointed King and Priest to the Father Eternal (Rev. i. 6). 

Lastly : would yon know how to be 

5. -The Comins ^ggtored in the Image of God? Then 

Satisfaction. ^ 

gaze on the character of Him Who is 
the Brightness from His Father's glory, and the express 
Image of His Person. Enter into the fellowship of that 
Character. Be everlastingly closeted with Him in the kin- 
ships and intimacies of a perfect friendship. Lovingly 
study every feature of that beaming Image. Beholding 
thus, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, even that light 
of the knowledge of the glory of the TiOrd which is given 
back in the face of Jesiis Christ, Who is the Image of God 
(2 Cor. iv. 6) — gazing thus on the mirror of Christ's Face, and 
discerning in it the glory of Jehovah, thou shalt be changed 
into the same Image, from glory to glory, even as by the 
Lord, the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 18). Thus gazing, and thus 
changed, it matters little what our earthly fate be, w^hether 
renown or obscurity, wealth or poverty, long life or early 
death. Enough that on the Kesurrection Morn we shall 
perceive that as we had borne the image of the earthly, 
even of the first man Adam, so henceforth we shall bear 
the Image of the Heavenly, even of the Second Man, the 
Lord from heaven (i Cor. xv. 41-49). God forbid that on that 
Eesurrection Morn any one of us shall bear an Image 
which He shall despise (Psalm ixxiii. 20). God grant that on 
that Eesurrection Morn all of us shall bear the Image of 
His Eternal Son. Ay, satisfied shall we be when we 
awake, O Image of God, with Thy Likeness (Psalm xvii. 15). 
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world witliout end. Amen. 



LECTUKE XL 



GENESIS OF EDEN 



" And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ; and 
tbere he put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground 
the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight 
and good for food ; the tree of life also in the midst of the Garden, 
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went 
out of Eden to water the garden ; and from thence it was parted and 
became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison : that is it 
wliich compasseth the whole land of Ilavilah, where there is gold ; 
and the gold of that land is good ; there is bdellium and the onyx 
stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon : the same is it 
that compasseth the w^hole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the 
third river is Iliddekel : that is it which goeth toward the east of 
Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the Lord God took 
the man and put him in the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep 
it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying : Of every tree 
of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the knowl- 
edge of good and evil, thou shalt not cat of it ; for in the day thou 
catest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said : It 
is not good that the Man should be alone : I will make him an help 
meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every 
beast of the field and every fowl of the air ; and brought them unto 
Adam to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called 
every livmg creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave 
names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of 
the field ; but for Adam there was not found an Jiclp meet for liim." 
— Genesis ii. 8-20. 



200 STUDIES IN THE CREATIYE WEEK. 

" Eden ! " What a tlirilling name ! 

' , . , T^ , , How deliciously it awakens memories 
graphical Problem. . ,, ^, , . -^ ^ . .^ . 

01 all tnat is most exquisite m scenery, 

most sacred in purity, most blissful in joy ! And yet where 
was Eden ? ]^o question in geography, secular or sacred, 
has been debated oftener, or with results more Yarious. 
Men have sought for Eden in Armenia, in Babylonia, along 
the Caspian Sea, in Bactria, in Syria, in Arabia, in India 
— in short, all along between the Ganges in Asia and the 
Nile in Africa. And to-day the battle is as undecided as 
ever. True, the Creation Archive gives us two landmarks 
which we can identify : the river Hiddekel, or Tigris, and 
the river Euphrates. But the trouble is to identify the 
other two rivers : the river Pison, which, we are told, 
traversed the whole land of Ilavilah, wherein were bdel- 
lium, and gold, and onyx — and the river Gihon, which 
traversed the whole land of Ethiopia, or Cush. All that 
we can determine at present is this : Eden lay to the east 
of the venerable w^itness of Creation's Panorama, some- 
where in the neighborhood of the Tigris and the Euphrates. 
And history strikingly confirms the chronicle of the hoary 
witness. Those confessedly competent to discuss such ques- 
tions agree that the cradle of mankind is to be looked for 
somewhere in the country of the Euphrates. Civilization 
has generally, with comparatively unimportant exceptions, 
moved from east to west. It was sober prose as well as 
poetic measure, when the Erin-born Bishop Berkeley, in 
his verses on the " Prospect of Planting Arts and Learn- 
ing in America," sang : 

" Westward the course of empire takes its way." 

The oft-quoted line is truer to-day than ever. Not only 
is Europe coming westward toward us, we ourselves are 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 201 

going westward toward Asia. Who knows but tliat we, 
the latest born of tlie nations, wuth the Continental rail- 
ways and Pacific steamships in our grasp, are God's chosen 
instruments in carry mg the Glad Tidings ever and ever 
westward, till, having crossed China, wx reach again the 
Cradle of Humanity, and reinaugurate the lost Paradise on 
the very spot where our inspired Seer caught glimpse of 
the Tree of Life ? The truth, however, is, the exact site 
of Eden will probably never be discovered — at least, till 
the day when the voice of Him Who was wont to walk in 
the Garden in the evening breeze (Gen. iii. 8) is again heard 
on earth. 'Not only was the ground cursed for man's sake 
the day he fell ; since then has occurred the Deluge ; and 
the man does not live who can say how much the convul- 
sions attending that awful catastrophe may have altered 
the whole surface and river system of the region in which 
Eden was situated. Probably, then, it is as hopeless to 
search for the exact site of Eden as it would be were the 
Cherubim still waving their flaming sword before the Tree 
of Life (Gen. iii. 24). 

Moreover : althoudi flrmly believing 

II. — Panorama , i , ^i ^ , . , ^ «, ^ 

of Emerging Eden. *^'^^ *^^''^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^"^ ^^^ ^ar-off ages 
an actual Eden, wherein the Creator in- 
stalled the Original Man, yet I also as firmly believe that 
the Eden of our passage, like the other scenes of the Crea- 
tive Week, was not so much a literal fact as a Divinely 
vouchsafed vision. Kecalling, now, that this account of 
Eden belongs to the second of the two Creation Archives, 
which, as we have seen, Moses has incorporated into his 
annals and made part of his own recital, let us again ascend 
the Mount of Panoramic Vision, and, in company with the 
inspired beholder of the second panorama, gaze on the un- 
rolling scene of the Emerging Eden. It is still early in 



202 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the Creative Week, corresponding to the Third Day of the 
first Arishive. So far as we can see, no plant of the field 
is yet in the earth, no herb of the field has yet sprung up. 
And no wonder. Jehovah God has not yet caused it to 
rain on the earth. But the hours fly apace. And now we 
see going up from the earth a mist, and it waters all the 
face of the ground, preparing it for vegetation. Alas ! 
there is no Man as yet to till the ground and develop its 
resources. The hours still fly apace. And now a Form 
like to that of the Son of Grod stoops down, and, taking in 
His hand some of the dust of the soil, and moulding it into 
a figure like to His own Divine Self, He breathes into the 
new nostrils His own life-breath ; and, lo ! the dust-figure 
becomes, in very virtue of having been Divinely inbreathed, 
the Creator's Inspiration, and so His Image and Son (Gen. 
ii. 5-7). A Being of origin so Divine, we cannot but think, 
will surely have a home worthy of him. llsTor are we mis- 
taken. The same God who has formed the Man, plants on 
the east of our Mount of Yision, in the fair territory of 
Eden or Delight, a Garden, or pleasure-park, of inconceiv- 
able loveliness. There He causes to spring up every tree 
that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. There, in 
the midst of the Garden, He plants two wondrous trees : 
the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good 
and Evil. There He causes a majestic River to flow, which, 
on issuing out of the Garden, parts into four great streams, 
Pison, and Gihon, and Tigris, and Euphrates. There He 
causes gold and onyx to sparkle, and awaken the sense of 
preciousness. There, in Eden's glorious Garden, He puts 
the Man He has inbreathed, and thereby made His Image, 
to till the Garden, and to keep it. There He announces 
His mysterious Edicts of Liberty and Prohibition : " Of 
every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 203 

the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, tliou slialt not 
eat of it ; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou slialt sure- 
ly die." There lie summons the animals before the In- 
spiration and Image ^6f^ God, and there they receive from 
him their names. And there, ere this Sixth, concluding 
Day closes, the Creator will give to the Man a Second 
Self, without whom even Eden itself would be a failure 
(Gen. ii. 21-22). Such is the panorama of the Emergent 
Paradise. 

And now let us attend to some of 
III. — Lessons of ,, i r .^ , 

the Vision. the lessons of the story. 

And, first : the Birth of Industry ; 
i.-The Birth of Jehovah God took the Man He had 
^ ^^^^^' formed, and put him in the Garden of 

Eden, to till it, and to keep it. 

, For, beautiful and perfect as Eden 

Nomai Condition!''' ^^'^^^ spotless and exalted as Adam him- 
self w^as, he must work. And this be- 
cause he was like his Heavenly Father and his Heavenly 
Father's Christ : " My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work " (John V. 17). And, first : man must work for the 
soil's sake. Generous as Mother Nature is, she is gen- 
erous as a rule only to those w^ho industriously and skill- 
fully avail themselves of her resources. Her capacities 
are latent as well as vast, and need the quickening, unfold- 
ing, marshaling power of a tireless and skillful labor. A 
very laboratory she is, whence the husbandman — that true 
chemist for society — obtains by elaboration those indispen- 
sable products of the soil which are more truly treasures 
than the diamonds of Golconda. The first of all arts was 
agriculture, and the first of all laborers a sinless man. 
Again : Man is to work not only for the soil's sake ; he is 
to work also for his own sake. He, too, has latent caj^aci- 



204 STUDIES TN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

ties, and as vast as latent, which can be brought into light 
and usefulness only as thej are subjected to the quicken- 
ing, unfolding power of a wisely-directed exercise. JSTo 
man knows what reservoirs of force are within him till he 
sets himself to work in the way his Maker appoints for 
him. He who does not use his faculties is as though he 
had none. And so it comes to pass that indolence and 
barbarism go hand in hand. It is not possible that an idle 
nation should be at the same time a civilized. Herein is 
the secret of the difference of prospect for the ^egro or 
the Chinaman, and the IS'orth American Indian ; the former 
are capable of civilization, because, as a rule, they are will- 
ing to work ; the latter incapable, because, as a rule, unwill- 
ing. The man, the family, the community, the nation, 
that will not work, cannot long hold their own against the 
stride of Industry. It is a law of J^ature and of the God 
of ISTature. God has said to Man : " Subdue the earth " 
(Gen. i. 28). And the man or the nation that refuses to obey 
must perish. We owe the Indians, with tingling shame be 
it confessed, vast debts of reparation for untold injustice 
and cruelties. All honor to Government for having un- 
dertaken the policy of the Peace Commission, l^evei-the- 
less, until the Indians as a body are willing to work, their 
case as a body is hopeless. 'No legislation, no Peace Com- 
missions, no largesses, can save them. They must go to 
the wall, not because they are Indians, but because they are 
sluggards. The busy beehive that is large enough for its 
myriad workers is too small for a single drone. We see 
here also the key to that great problem, the cure of Pau- 
perism: it is Work. Pegard with distrust every able- 
bodied man who is unwilling to work — i. e., when he has 
an opportunity. It is a mistaken kindness, founded nei- 
ther in reason nor in morality, which feeds the healthy 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 205 

mendicant wlio would ratlier beg than dig. I know that 
it seems hard to turn away from the tattered wretch who, 
like your dog, piteously supplicates for the crumbs that 
fall from your table, '^ut it is precisely because this tat- 
tered wretch is not a dog, but a man, and can work, that 
makes it sinful to pamper him in his wicked laziness. Em- 
ployment for all is a more generous bounty to the suffering 
poor than a thousand soup-breakfasts or a thousand asylums. 
Ail honor to those business men and firms and coi-porations 
who, notwithstanding the present paralysis of trade, are 
still carrying on their enterprises, in spite of receiving no 
j^rofits, and even incurring losses, sustained by the noble 
consciousness that in so doing they are making employment 
in advance of returns, and therefore helping to buttress 
cnmibling society. When will legislators, prompted though 
they may have been by the pm^est philanthropy and guided 
by the wisest earthly statesmanship, cease substituting hu- 
man enactments in the shape of Poor Laws for the Divine 
arrangement that maintenance is the natural product of a 
properly encouraged and rewarded industry ? " We have 
commanded you," says an Apostle, ^' that if any one will 
not work, neither shall he eat " (2 Thess. iii. lo) ; and a Great- 
er than an Apostle has said : " The laborer is worthy of his 
hire " (Luke X. 1). Let these two principles be carried out, 
and the problem of Political Economy is solved. Once 
more : Man is to work not only for the soil's sake and his 
own sake ; he is also to work for God's sake. Not only is he 
to " dress " or till the Garden, and so develop its resources ; 
lie is also to " keep " the Garden, and so hold it in trust for 
its real Owner. Thus Labor and S towards! lip, Yigilance 
and Kesponsibility, have their birth in Eden. Work — i. c., 
all true Work — means Responsibility. And it is tlie sense 
of Accountability which gives to Work its worth and its 



206 STUDIES IN THE CEEATIVE WEEK. 

glory. Herein lies the true Dignity of Labor. This phrase, 
so frequent on the lips of demagogues and on the pages of 
pamphleteers, they do not grasp in the majesty of its im- 
port. They understand it as simply meaning that labor is 
honorable because it contributes to the material and social 
prosperity of a people ; whereas the true Dignity of Labor 
consists, not in the mere accumulation of wealth, nor yet in 
the amelioration of earthly ills, but in the homageful and 
joyous returning of all the products of labor, physical and 
intellectual, to Him Whose is the earth and the fullness 
thereof (Psalm xxiv. 1). And since this is the duty of all, I see 
no reason for the distinctions which so many make between 
different kinds of labor, as though one kind were more 
honorable tlian another. I believe that the devout fisher- 
men off the coast of Labrador, whose sanctuary is his little 
smack, whose lamps are the stars of night, whose music 
is the choir of wind and wave, pursues a calling as honor- 
able in the sight of Him Who seeth in secret as does the 
preacher whose holy eloquence stirs to their lowest depths 
the hearts of worshiping multitudes. 'No ; it is not the 
kind of employment itself, but the sense of responsibility 
accompanying it, which gives to Labor its celestial dignity. 
As good George Herbert sings ; 

" A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine : 
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws 
Makes that and the action fine." 

(5.)— Pursue your Since, then, Labor is God's Ordi- 
Caliing with Enthu- ^^^^^^ £^^ ^^^^^ pursue your calling, 
whatever it be, with diligence and cheer- 
fulness. If God have called you, as He called Adam, to 
till the ground, let your weedless field give evidence that 
Industry has holden the plough and the hoe in her hands. 



GENESIS or EDEN. 207 

If He have called you to ply the instniments of the artisan, 
let your shop be musical the livelong day with the clicking 
of your tools. If He have called you to the pursuit of 
trade, let your well-arranged commodities and punctual ful- 
fillments testify that you are not slothful in business 
(Rom. xii. 11). If He have called you to the quest of knowl- 
edge, let your well-thumbed books attest that Diligence has 
reigned in your study. If He have called you to the wife- 
ly duties of the matron, look w^ell to the ways of thy house- 
hold, and eat not the bread of idleness (Prov. xxxi. 27). Take 
care lest thy Garden degenerate into the sluggard's field, 
grow^n xiijy with nettles, covered with brambles, breached 
with broken walls. Poverty prowling around thy dwelling, 
thy Wants leaping upon thee as armed men (Prov. xxiv. 30-34). 
In brief : whatever be the occupation to which the Provi- 
dence of Goi has called thee, pursue it with enthusiasm, 
doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to 
God the Father through Him (Col. iii. 11). 

This, then, is the lesson under the present head of dis- 
course : Industry is man's normal condition. His Maker 
imposed on liim the duty of labor while yet he was sinless, 
fresh from the Divine inbreathing. Thus does the first 
sentence in the History of Mankind record the Divine In- 
auguration of tlie Keign of Human Labor. 

Secondly : The Birth of Lan- 

2.— The Birth of .. rpi ivr x n 

Language. S^^^^ ' ^^^® ^^^^ ^^""'^ ^'^^^es tO all 

cattle and to the fowl of the air and to 
every beast of the field." 

Were I asked what I thought was 
71 °" ^^ " " the most w^onderful faculty of man, I 

ness CI Languai'e. -^ ^ 

should answer : The faculty of Lan- 
guage. For, consider for a moment what a word is. A 
word consists of two elements, which not only have noth- 



208 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

iiig in common, but are diametrically opposed. Suppose 
it is a spoken or audible word ; as such, it is but a sound — 
an aerial vibration striking tympanum and brain. Suppose 
it is a written or visible word ; as such, it is but a shape on 
a piece of paper. Yet in either case it is also a casketed, 
infigured idea. A word is an embodied thought or feeling. 
The same air that stirs a leaf incarnates and conveys to the 
percipient mind an immaterial idea. Language marries 
Thought and Matter, or rather Thought and Thought in 
the sphere of Matter. A word may incarnate the vastest 
conceptions, as, e. g., an astronomical fact ; or the subtilest 
conceptions, as, e. g., a biological hypothesis. Again: 
Words conserve the immaterial past, turning it into an im- 
mortal heirloom ; a word carries us back to Washington, to 
Shakespeare, to Mohammed, to Cicero, to Plato, to Abra- 
ham, to Adam. Words are the Manes of past centuries. 
You think that the phonograph is a wonderful thing, and 
so it is ; but it does not compare in wonderf ulness with the 
most careless, insignificant word which it echoes and pre- 
serves. Even the childish prattle of the nursery is more 
wonderful than the most surprising transformation in chem- 
istry ; it turns vibrations of material, unconscious air into 
immaterial, intelligible, influencing ideas. Yes, words are 
the most wonderful of things. 

ISTo wonder, then, that the Origin of 
„^ ^ '}~ ° ^^^* Lans^uafi^e is such a fascinating^ problem. 

Words Nouns. _^_ ^ . ^ . . ^ ^ ^ "'• 

Was it an invention? bo some have 
taught. Was it the issue of a convention ? So some have 
taught. Was it an imitation of the sounds of ISTature ? So 
some have taught. Was it a direct gift from heaven ? So 
some have taught. Most erudite men have pondered the 
problem ; and yet all speculation here is quite afloat. And 
so we fall back on the childlike, pictorial language of 



GENESIS OF EDEX. 209 

Time's most hoarj Archive : " Jehovah God formed out 
of the soil every beast of the field and every fowl of the 
heavens : and lie brought them to the Man to see what he 
would call them : ahHTwhatever the Man should call every 
living being, that should be the name thereof; and the 
Man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the heav- 
ens, and to every beast of the field." It was Man's first 
recorded act. Observe : it was an act of perception, dis- 
crimination, description. The animals were arrayed before 
him ; and animals suggest all the j^henomena of life. And 
the vision of moving life stirred up within him the latent 
capacity of speech. In brief, it was the origin of Human- 
ity's vocabulary. As such, it is a profoundly philosophical 
account. For nouns, i. e., names, are the rudiments of 
language, the very A B C's of speech. Such is the Theory 
of the Genesis of Language according to Moses. Can your 
Max Miillers and Wedgwoods and Whitneys give a more 
philosophical theory ? 

Before dismissing this point, I must 
xT "^ ^^ ^ say a few words touching the awful 

our Judges. "^ . 

grandeur of the Gift of Language. Its 
tremendous power is simply inconceivable. 'Not only is it 
the instniment of thought, reacting on tlie mind of him 
who speaks, giving to his thoughts solidity, order, clear- 
ness, energy; it is also the grand instrument of human 
edification, or society building. The best comment on this 
point is the fourteenth chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle 
to the Corinthians. Language it is which makes human 
society possible. Language is the bridge between man and 
man — the circulating medium of society, the wondrous 
power which converts human units into the Human Unity 
— ^men into Man. And so Language is the grand edificator 
of the race. Listen to some proverbs : " A well of life is 



210 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the moutli of the righteous" (Prov. x. ii); "A wholesome 
tongue is a tree of life " (Prov. xv. 4) ; " Words of kindness 
are as the honeycomb — sweetness to the sonl, and a healing 
to the bones " (Prov. xvi. 24) ; '' Apples of gold in framework 
of silver is a word spoken in its season " (Prov. xxv. ii). Bnt, 
alas ! death as well as life is in the power of the tongue. 
Listen, then, to another proverb : "As a madman that 
hurleth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is a man that de- 
ceiveth his neighbor, and saith : ^ Am I not in sport ? ' " 
(Prov. xxvi. 18, 19). But the most burning description of the 
terrific power of the tongue is given us by the Apostle 
James : " Behold, how great a forest a little fire kindleth ! 
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue 
is that among our members which defileth the whole body, 
and setteth on fire the course of Nature — ^the wheel of 
Creation — and is itself set on fire by hell. For every kind 
of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of 
things in the sea, is tamable, and hath been tamed by man- 
kind : but the tongue no man can tame ; it is a restless 
mischief, full of deadly poison " (James in. 2-1 o). Oh, what 
untold misery and anguish the tongue has brought into the 
world ; e. g., the tongue of the tale-bearer, taking up a re- 
proach against his neighbor, and giving it wings ; the 
tongue of the slanderer, blasting a fair name, and crushing 
glorious powers ; the tongue of the scandal-monger, filling 
a continent and world with noisomeness and pestilential 
stench ; the tongue of the insinuator, undermining success, 
and murdering character ; the tongue of the gossiper, car- 
rying into a household tears and anguish and death. Yer- 
ily, the tongue is an untamable mischief, full of deadly 
poison, a world of iniquity, itself set on fire by Gehenna. 
And not only is the power of words tremendous, their 
power is also immortal. Words are not the evanescent 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 211 

sounds we sometimes fancy them to be. For what is a 
word ? A spoken word is a series of sounds, so arranged 
as to embody an idea^ And what is a sound ? A sound, 
to answer roughly, is a disturbance of the air, so that certain 
vibrations, or waves, reach the mind through the ear and 
brain. ]^ow it is one of the solemn teachings of modern 
science that no atom of matter can undergo any change 
whatever without affecting each adjacent atom ; nor can 
these adjacent atoms be affected without affecting, in turn, 
every atom adjacent to each of them ; and so on till the 
original impulse, or change, started by the first atom, is 
propagated through immensity, so that the whole material 
Creation is in a different state from what it would have 
been had not the disturbance of that first atom taken place. 
Nor is this all : inasmuch as these atoms, thus disturbed 
throughout the material universe, keep acting and reacting 
on each other perj)etually, it is evident that the effects 
of the slightest atomic change are not only propagated 
throughout all Creation, but are propagated everlastingly. 
Thus the slightest word vibrating in the air, though it be 
but a whispered interjection, sets in operation a series of 
changes which undulate to the very outskirts of Creation, 
rising and falling Hke an everlasting tide. Milton utters 
but scientific truth when he speaks of 

"Airy tongues, that syllable men's names 
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses." 

— (" COMUS.") 

Thus the whole material universe, from tiniest atom at 
earth's centre to farthest orb in limitless space, is a mighty 
Whispering Gallery, in which the Infinite One is everlast- 
ingly hearing every word, every whisper, breathed by 
every human being, from the day Adam pronounced his 
first word to the day when time shall be no more. If, then, 



212 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the scarcely audible rustle of an unconscious aspen-leaf sets 
in inexorable motion atom after atom — from leaf to tree, 
from tree to earth, from earth to star, till the whole mate- 
rial Creation responds in agitation — think you that any 
word, however "idle," spoken by conscious, responsible 
Man, will ever die away ? Oh, no ! Every word you and 
I have spoken has already taken the witness-stand before 
the Judgment Throne, to testify for us or against us. 
Words are immortal. 

" I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I know not where ; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

" I hreathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I know not where; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song? 

" Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow still unhroke ; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend." 

— (Longfellow.) 

Such is the awful grandeur of the Gift of Speech. 
Words make earth a heaven or a hell. I wonder not that 
w^hen the wondrous !Nazarene loosed the tongue-strings of 
the Mute of Decapolis He sighed (Mark vii. 32-35). I wonder 
not that the E^azarene Himself said : " I say unto you that, 
for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give 
account thereof in the Day of Judgment : for by thy w^ords 
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con- 
demned " (Matt. xii. 36, 87). For words are in an eminent 
sense revealers of character. Out of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh : the good man, out of the good 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 213 

treasure of liis lieart, bringeth forth good things : the bad 
man, out of the bad treasure, bringeth forth bad things 
(Matt. xii. 34, 35). Speech^is the exhalation of the heart. Thus 
words are the representatives of character, translating char- 
acter into language, which he who runs may read. In 
fact, this very word " character " etymologically means 
what is marked, engraved, lettered. Thus Orlando to 
Eosalind in the Forest of Arden : 

" These trees shall be mj books, 
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; 
That every eye, which in this forest looks, 
Shall see thy virtue witaess'd everywhere.'' 

— ("As You Like It," iii. 2.) 

A man's character is the inscription which his habits 
have engraved on him. And his words translate that in- 
scription. His words characterize him, i. e., they give his 
characteristics ; and this is but another way of saying they 
reveal his character. And so it is that our. speech be- 
tray eth us. And therefore our words will be our judges 
on the great day : By thy words thou wilt be justified, and 
by thy words thou wilt be condemned. Thank God, Jesus 
Christ is Himself the true, eternal language. He Himself 
is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1. 1). 
And just because He was and is the Word of God — God in 
utterance, in articulation, in exhibition — He was and is the 
Truth : and therefore by His words the world and the uni- 
verse is, year by year, century by century, aeon by aeon, 
justifying Him, the Word of God, more and more. And 
so it comes to pass that a Christly life is also man's true 
language. O friend, let thy words be like Christ's, and 
thou too shalt be justified. AVhat though thou art un- 
versed in the school of earth's oratory ? Enough that thou 



214 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

speakest the language of Christ's character ; for thus thou 
speakest correctly, according to the eternal Grammar : ay, 
even eloquently, according to the eternal Ehetoric. Heaven 
grant that when you and I shall stand in the Judgment 
Hall of a Greater than Pilate, some friend of the Judge 
shall say to each of us : " Thou too art a Galilean ; for thy 
speech beA\Tayeth thee " (Matt. xxvi. 73). 

3.-The Birth of Thirdly : The Birth of Immortality : 
, Immortality. '' Jeliovah God planted in the midst of 

the Garden the Tree of Life." 

(a.) - Sisniacance "^^ }^^ thoughtful observer, perhaps, 
of Trees. ° there is no more profound object in 

]L^ature than a Tree. Its graceful figure, 
its wavy outlines, its emerald hue, its variety of branches 
and twigs and leaves — illustrating diversity in unity — its 
tinted and fragrant blossoms, its luscious fruit, its exhibi- 
tion of many of the wonderful phenomena of human life, 
such as birth, growth, respiration, absorption, circulation, 
sleep, sexuality, decay, death, reproduction : these are some 
of the particulars which make a Tree the living parable of 
man and of society, and, as such, perhaps the most inter- 
esting object in the natural world. 'No wonder, then, that 
among all nations and in all ages trees have had a peculiar 
fascination, and even sacredness for the devoutly inclined. 
Witness the Groves of the Hebrews, the Symbol-tree of 
the Assyrian Sculptures, the Dryads of Greece, the Druids 
of Britain, the Igdrasil of the IS'orsemcn.^ We need not 

1 '• I like, too, that representation they have of the Tree Igrdrasil. All Life is figured 
by them as a Tree. Igdrasil, the Ash-tree of Existence, has its roots deep down in the 
Kingdom of Ilela or Death ; its trunlc reaches up heaven-high, spreads its boughs over 
the whole universe : it is the Tree of Existence. At the foot of it, in the Death-Kingdom, 
Bit Three Nomas, Fates — the Past, Present, Future — watering its roots from the Sacred 
Well. Its boughs, with their buddings and disleafings— events, things suffered^ things done, 
catastrophes— stretch through all lands and times. Is not every leaf of it a biography, 
every fibre there an act or word ? Its boughs are Histories of Nations. The rustle of it is 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 215 

be surprised, then, that on going back to ^N^ature's Eden 
we learn that Paradise, rich in every element of beauty, 
was especially rich in trees. Jehovah God caused to spring 
up in the Garden of Ed^en every tree that is pleasant to the 
siglit and good for food. But amid all this variety of 
trees two stood forth in memorable conspicuousness, their 
very names having come down to us through the oblivion 
of millenniums : one was the Tree of Life in the midst of 
the Garden ; the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good 
and Evil. 

(b WThe Tico of ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ponder the Tree of 
Life. Life. What kind of life did that Tree 

represent ? Why was it called the Tree 
of Life ? If I conceive it rightly, it was called the Tree of 
Life, because it was the symbol of a bestowed Immortality. 
Observe precisely the statement here made : the statement 
is not that Man is not immortal ; the statement is that Man 
is not naturally, inherently, constitutionally, in the original 
make-up of his being, immortal. Observe again : I am not 
speaking of the evidences of Man's natural immortality as 
indicated by reason, or intuition, or the general sense of 
mankind. I am speaking of the doctrine of immortality 
as indicated in the Archive of Eden. And yet — for I 
would be candid — I must add that not a single j^assage of 
Holy Writ, from Genesis to Eevelation, teaches, so far as 
I am aware, the doctrine of Mali's natural immortality.. 

the noise of Human Existence, onward from of old. It grows there, the bieatb of Human 
Passion rustling through it ; or storm-tossed, the storm-wind howling through it like tho 
voice of all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree of Existence. It is the past, the present, and 
tho future : what was done, what is doing, what will be done : ' the infinite conjugation of 
the verb To do.' Considering how human things circulate, each inextricably in communion 
with all— how the word I speak to you to-day is borrowed, cot from Ulfila the Meso-Gotb 
only, but from all men since tho First Man began to speak — I find uo similitude so true as 
this of a Tree. Beautiful— altogether beautiful and great 1 The 'Machine of tho Uni- 
verse'— olas, do but think of that in contrast."— (''IIeeoes and Ueeo-Woksiup," Lect- 
ure I.) 



216 STUDIES IN THE CREATITE WEEK. 

On the other hand, Holy Writ emphatically declares that 
God only hath immortality (i Tim. vi. 16) : that is to say : 
God, alone is naturally, inherently, in His own essence and 
nature, immortal. He alone is the I Am — having this as 
His name forever. His memorial to all generations (Ex. m. 
13-15). If, then, Man is immortal, it is because immortality 
has been bestowed on him. He is immortal, not because 
he was created so, but because he has become so, deriving 
his deathlessness from Him Who alone hath immortality. 
And of this fact the Tree of Life in the midst of the Gar- 
den seems to have been the appointed symbol and pledge. 
That this is the meaning of the Tree of Life is evident 
from the closing words of the Archive of the Fall : " Jeho- 
vah God said : ' Behold, the Man hath become as one of 
Us, to know good and evil ; and now, lest he stretch forth 
his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and 
live forever : ' therefore Jehovah God drove the Man forth 
from Eden, and stationed on the East of the Garden the 
Cherubim, and the Flaming Sword which turned every 
way, to guard the way to the Tree of Life " (Gen. iii. 22-24). 
H Man is inherently immortal, what need was there of any 
Tree of Life at all ? This much, then, seems to be clear : 
Immortality was somehow parabolically conditioned on the 
eating of this mysterious Tree, and the Immortality was 
for the entire Man — spirit and soul and body. 

Fourthly : The Birth of Probation : 
rrobatio'i " ^^ every tree of the Garden thou 

mayest freely eat : but of the Tree of 
Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for 
in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." 
By the Knowledge of Good and Evil I suppose is meant 
that sorrowful knowledge of them which comes through 
personally experiencing the loss of the one and the access 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 217 

of the otlier. And tliis experimental knowledge of Good 
and Evil comes ordinarily through the sense of Prohibi- 
tion. In other words, and those, too, of Holy Writ : " Sin 
is the transgressing of^ie Law " (i John iii. 4) ; that is to say : 
Sin is a crossing of the limits or boundary-line, laid down 
for us by the Creator Who made us, and Who, having made 
us, has the right to appoint our limits. Here is the mean- 
ing of Eden's Forbidden Tree : it parabolically sets forth 
the fact of Moral Probation. And we may bless God that 
there was and still is such a Tree. For no one knows, or 
can knoAV, himself till he has been tested. Ordeal is neces- 
sary to the proof of character — to character itself. AVhat 
though Adam, when installed in Eden, was fresh from his 
Maker's hand and radiant with His Image ? He needed a 
Forbidden Tree in order that he might not only awake to 
the sense of right and wrong, and so of morality, but also 
that he might awake to the sense of his power of choice 
between right and wrong, obedience and disobedience. 
And so the Forbidden Tree tested him, alas! too well. 
JSTevertheless, the test was intended to be, and but for his 
own fault would have been, a genuine kindness. For the 
sense of obedience, not less than the obedience itself, is 
essential to moral joy. Tims a specific prohibition gave to 
Adam the opportunity of knowing whether he was obedi- 
ent or not. Had he obeyed the proliibition, that very 
sense of obedience would have been to him the source of a 
genuine bliss. Ah, friend, Adam was not the only man 
who has had this test of a Forbidden Tree. All human 
life — oh, that we more thoroughly understood it and be- 
lieved it ! — is a Probation, a Probing. In our moral con- 
stitution itself, in the very make-up of our moral sti-ucture, 
each of us necessarily has in himself a Forbidden Tree. 
In fact, Eden itself would not be an Eden unless it had 
10 



218 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

such a Tree. God grant that we may endure the test 
better than did our first Father ! God grant that we may 
endure it as triumphantly as did the second Adam ! 

Fifthly: The Eden of the Soul. 
, 'I" , " For to every human being, not less than 

to Adam, God has given a Garden to 
till and to keep : it is the Garden within him. Alas ! this 
Garden of the Soul is no longer an Eden. An enemy 
hath come and sown tares (Matt. xiii. 25). Instead of the fir- 
tree has come up the thorn, and instead of the myrtle-tree 
has come up the brier (is. iv. 13). Nevertheless, the capacity 
of Paradise still lies latent within us all. Like seeds which 
have for ages lain buried beneath the soil of our primeval 
forests, there lie deep down in the subsoil of our moral 
natures the germs of giant spirit powers and experiences. 
Fallen as we are, we are capable of being redeemed, re- 
instated in the range of conscious sonship to the everlasting 
Father. In fact, this capacity for redemption is, on its 
human side, the basis of the possibility of Christ's Salva- 
tion. The Son of God came not to crush, but to save ; not 
to destroy, but to restore ; not to annihilate, but to trans- 
figure. And v/hen we let Him have His way in our 
hearts ; when we let Him drive the ploughshare of His 
Spirit's conviction, uprooting tares and thorns and aU bale- 
ful weeds ; when we let Him sow the good seed of the 
kingdom, which is the Word of God ; when we let Him 
quicken it with the warmth of His breath, and water it 
with the dews of His grace, and hue it with the sunshine 
of His beauty : then does Paradise Lost become Paradise 
Found ; then is brought to pass— oh, how gloriously ! — 
the saying of the Poet-Prophet : '' The wilderness and the 
solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and 
blossom as the rose " (Is. xxxv. i). Ay, Jehovah wiU make 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 219 

tliy wilderness like Eden, and thy desert like the Garden 
of tlie Lord (is. li. 3). Meantime, the Lord of Eden, in re- 
claiming it, nses agents^ And His agent is the soul itself. 
Man is both soil and seed, both Garden and Gardener. 
Restore thon, then, thy Eden. Break np the fallow ground 
of thy heart (Jer. iv. 3). Gather out the stones of insensi- 
bility. Weed out the tares of worldliness, the thorns of 
selfishness, the briers of self-indulgence. Prune off the 
fruitless, dead branches of a professional morality. Put up 
the fence of self-restraint. Open the soil to thy Father's 
breath and light and warmth. Let His grace distill down 
into the very depths of thy being, quickening thy dead 
powers, unfolding thy latent, majestic possibilities, devel- 
oping all heroic virtues and saintly graces, fructifying them 
into the heavenly cornucopia, even those fruits of the 
Spirit which are love, peace, joy, long-suffering, kindness, 
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance (Gal. v. 22, 23). 
Cultivate thy soil with the hoe and harrow of self-sacrifice. 
Fertilize it with the truth of God, and meditation thereon. 
Water it with the dews of prayer. Support the weaklier 
virtues with the trellis of a strong purpose stayed on God, 
and a heavenw^ard aspiration, even the lattice of the princely 
sisterhood. Faith, Hope, Love (i Cor. xiii. 13). Guard against 
all inroads of thorn and blight and worm and jDoacher. 
Arrange and adorn with the parterres and walks and arbors 
and founts of a well-ordered life and godly conversation. 
And, finally, keep the whole in faithful, loving guardian- 
ship for Him Whose tenants and fiefs ye are. Ay, this is 
the dignity of your calling, this the grandeur of your mis- 
sion into the world, this the majesty of your vocation as 
God's Inspiration and Image. What though earth has 
been ciirsed, and Nature's Paradise lost? Each one of 
you may, by the grace of God, have an Eden within you 



220 STUDIES IX THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

as mncli nobler tlian Adam's as spirit is nobler than mat- 
ter. Keep, then, that which has been committed to thy 
trust ; and then in the day when the Lord of the Garden 
shall take account of His Gardeners, thou shalt find that 
the park thou hast tilled and guarded is indeed the Para- 
dise of thy God. So shall the King desire thy beauty. He 
shall come into thy soul as into a Garden inclosed; thy 
plants shall be to Him a park of pomegranates, with all 
most precious fruits, nard and crocus, sweet cane and cin- 
namion, myrrh and aloes, with all trees of Lebanon, and 
richest spices. Even now, O JN'orth Wind, awake ! Come, 
O South ! Breathe upon Thy Garden, that its spices may 
send forth their fragrance. So shall my Beloved come 
into His Garden, and eat His pleasant fruits (rsalm xlv. ii ; 

Cant. iv. 12-16). 

And so I come to speak, lastly, of 

6.— The neavenly ,, . , i f- -d j- 

j,^^^ the coming and everlasting Paradise. 

For the Eden that has been was but a 
type and humble hint of the Eden that is to be. The true 
Golden Age, of which the bards are ever singing, is not to 
be looked for in the Past, but in the Euture. In fact, it is 
this conception of a Paradise which has been, and is not, 
and may yet be, which is the foundation and inspiration of 
all genuine poetry, alike heathen and Christian, whether 
the bard be a Homer or a Dante, a Yirgil or a Milton, a 
Tennyson or a Bonar. This Pestoration of Paradise be- 
longs to those Times of Restitution of all things which 
God hath promised by the mouth of His holy prophets 
since the world began (Acts iii. 21). Yet this Pestitution 
shall be something more than a simple restoration of the 
lost Paradise. The Eden that is to be shall be as much 
grander than the Eden that has been as Christ, the Image 
of the invisible God, is grander than Adam, the image 



GENESIS OF EDEN. 221 

of Christ. Listen : If by tlie trespass of the one, death 
reigned through the one, much more shall they who re- 
ceive the abundance of the grace and of the gift of righte- 
ousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (Rom. v. 
12-21). God grant that all of us may wash our robes in the 
blood of the Lamb, and so have right to the Tree of Life, 
and enter in through the gates into the city (Rev. xxii. 14) ! 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it Avas in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE XIL 



GENESIS OF WOMAl^- 



" And the Lord God said : It is not good that tlie man should 
be alone : I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the 
ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl 
of the air, and brought them nnto Adam to see what he would call 
them ; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was 
the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the 
fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field ; but for Adam there 
was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a 
deep sleep to fall upoa Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his 
ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof ; and the rib, which the 
Lord God hath taken from man, made He a woman, and brought 
her unto the man. And Adam said : This is now bone of my bones, 
and flesh of my flesh ; she shall be called Woman, because she was 
taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his 
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. 
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not 
ashamed." — Genesis ii. 18-25. 



. First of all, let us, as is our wont, 

f th P o- attend to the Explanation of the Pas- 

sage. For a remarkable story it is, and 
in an eminent sense it needs explanation. 

At the very outset, then, let me say 
j~ . IT, ', ° that, for reasons indicated in our Intro- 

an Inspireu Parable. ' 

ductory Study, I believe that this record 
of the Genesis of Woman is a Divine Parable. Of course, 
it is possible that the record is to be taken literally. Of 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 223 

course, it is possible that Almighty God, for Whom noth- 
ing is too hard (Gen. xviii. 4), except to do wrong, could have 
performed on Adam in Eden a surgical operation, admin- 
istering to him an anaesthetic (for it is scarcely conceivable 
that a loving God would have inflicted on a sinless Man in 
Paradise the pain of a bodily injury without the soothing 
of an anodyne), taking out of the slumberer one of his 
ribs, stanching the crimson flow, healing the wound, turn- 
ing the rib into a "Woman. Of course, the Maker of heaven 
and earth, had He so chosen, could have done this, and 
many another even more incredible thing. Nevertheless, 
I cannot help feeling that to take the story thus literally is 
not only to isolate it from other scenes of the Creative 
Week, which we are compelled, for reasons repeatedly as- 
signed, to regard as j)anoramic ; it is also to degrade a sol- 
emn, profound Parable into a grotesque, ridiculous affair, 
worthy to take its place, not with the august revelations of 
the Infinite One, but with the cunningly-devised fables of 
heathen legends, as, e. g., the birth of panoplied Athena 
from the cloven brow of Zeus. Pemember, as I have often 
reminded you, that in this matter of the Creative Week we 
are moving in a region of incomparable Truths, altogether 
transcending human experience. The language, then, must, 
in the very nature of the case, be figurative, giving us the 
truth not so much in literal details as in shadowy outlines, 
colossal hints, stupendous flitting vistas. 'No, friends, the 
Story of the Genesis of Woman is a Divine Parable. Be- 
ing a Divine Parable, it has been written for our instruc- 
tion, upon w^liom the ends of the world are come (i Cor. x. ii). 
May God help us to catch the true, momentous meaning ! 
Let us, then, a^ain ascend the Mount 

2. — Panorama of « -r. . 47-. • i •,^ 

Emergent Woman. ^^ Panoramic Yision, and survey with 
the inspired Seer the unfolding scene of 



224 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Emergent "Woman. It is still the Sixth Day. Eden, in all 
its ravishing beantj, lies before ns. Adam, fresh from the 
hands of his Maker, respirant with His inbreathing (Gen. ii. 1), 
radiant with His Image (Gen. i. 26), walks before us lord of 
all. And yet, in spite of the Edenic perfections, he is ill 
at ease. There is, somehow, the sense of an indefinable 
want. And now his Maker would teach him the secret of 
his disquietude. Accordingly, He summons before the 
Man the various forms of animal life, that Adam may 
catch a glimpse of what is meant by Society. And so 
every beast of the field and every bird of the air comes 
trooping to Adam, and he gives to each its name. The 
vision of this moving, sentient, abounding life awakens the 
latent capacity for companionship. But, amid all these 
varieties of animal life, he finds no true companion, no 
help meet, no mate suited to him. And now, wearied with 
his work of naming the animal creation, and still disquieted 
by the sense of defect, he lies down on the rich, odorous 
sward, it may be in the shadow of the Tree of Life, and 
falls into a profound slumber. It is the golden hour for 
Divine instruction ; for it is in dreams, in visions of the 
night, when deep sleep f alleth upon men, that God openeth 
their ear, and sealeth up their instruction (Job xxxiii. 15, 16). 
Wrapped in his deep sleep, Eden's dreamer beholds the 
vision of his Second Self. He sees his Maker taking from 
out of him one of his own ribs, forming it into a Woman, 
and presenting her in all her glorious beauty to himself, to 
be to him henceforth that blessed mate for whom he has 
unconsciously sighed. And so his God has in very truth 
given to His beloved in his sleep (Psalm cxxvii. 2). Nor is it 
altogether a dream. Awaking from his sleep, he beholds 
still standing by him the fair, blissful vision. Instinctively 
recognizing the community of nature, he joyously ex- 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 225 

claims : " This, now, is bone of my bones and flesh of my 
flesh ; this shall be called Woman, Isha, because from Man, 
Ish, was she taken."__And hand in hand they stroll rai- 
mentless — the Man and his "Wife — and are not ashamed. 
And so falls the curtain on the final scene of the drama of 
the Sixth Day. Such is the Vision of Emergent Woman. 
II.— Moral Mean- -^^^ ^^^ ^®^ ^^ attend to some of 

ing of the Vision, the lessons of the Vision. 
1.— The Essential And, first : The Essential Unity of 

Unity of Man and Man and Woman : " This, now, is bone 

Woman. of j^y bones and flesh of my flesh ; this 

shall be called Woman, because from Man was she taken." 

But here, at the very outset, let me 

(a.) -Woman's For- ^^^^ ^^^^ attention to a significant fact. 

ma n erion Y ^ j^ ^^ Parable of Eden is true, Woman 
is inferior to Man. I am aware that I 
am entering on a debated, troublesome question. But I 
have undertaken to expound the Story of the Creative 
Week. I wish to do my task honestly, and, so far as may 
be, thoroughly, fairly meeting every question fairly raised. 
And our Passage does fairly raise the question of Woman's 
relation to Man in the matter of authority. The Woman 
was not created alongside with the Man ; the Woman was 
taken out of the Man. And millenniums afterward, in full 
blaze of Him Who, as born of Woman, is the Light of 
men. His Apostle Paul reafiirms the ancient Archive : 
" The Man is not from the Woman, but the Woman from 
the Man ; neither was the Man for the sake of the Woman, 
but the Woman was for the sake of the Man (i Cor. xi. s, 9) ; 
for Adam was first formed, then Eve " (i Tim. ii. 13). And 
upon this fact the Apostle, throughout his Letters, bases 
his doctrine of Woman's subordination to Man. But what 
are we to learn from these deliverances of Holy Writ 



226 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

toiicliing Woman's subordination ? That Man is essentially 
superior to Woman ? Most certainly not. We are to learn 
chiefly this : Woman, in the matter of outward, formal, 
scenic authority, is to yield to Man. For every kind of 
organization, whatever it may be, political, military, finan- 
cial, ecclesiastical, domestic, must have some kind of nomi- 
nal head, or index-finger^e. g., King, President, General, 
Chairman, Bishop, Pastor, Husband. Look at grand old 
Fatherland. According to her theory of Government, 
England must have a Monarch. And who sits on Eng- 
land's throne to-day ? A woman — a pure, noble, true- 
hearted woman. But, because Victoria wears a crown as 
her nation's emblazoned figure-head, does it necessarily fol- 
low that she is intellectually superior to the Disraeli who 
holds her helm of state ; or morally superior to the Spur- 
geon who preaches that there is another Sovereign, even 
one Jesus ? Quite so is it with Woman in her relation to 
Man. According to Holy Scripture, she is subordinate to 
him. But this subordination implies in no sense what- 
ever any essential inferiority. Woman is Man's peer in all 
essential capacities — in capacities of sensibility, intellect, 
moral worth, humanhood. Woman is Man's inferior sim- 
ply in the matter of scenic, symbolic, formal authority. 
Alas ! there are men who are brutes enough to take ad- 
vantage of this truth, and, complacently airing their own 
grandeur, talk patronizingly of Woman. 

" 0, it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength ; hut it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant. 
Could great men thunder 

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, 
For every pelting, petty officer 
Would use his heaven for thunder : nothino: but thunder 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 22? 

Man, proud man ! 
Dress'd in a little brief autlioritj, 
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, 
His glassy essence— like an angry ape — 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, 
As make the angels weep." 

— (" Measure for Measure," ii. 2.) 

And when any husband takes advantage of this Script- 
ural teaching respecting AVoman's formal inferiority, and 
lords it over his wife, or talks slightingly of her, or of her 
sex, as an inferior creation, he does a mean, contemptible 
thing, and would God I could 

"Put in every honest hand a whip, 
To lash the rascal naked through the world, 
Even from the East to the West ! " 

—("Othello," iv. 2.) 

Nevertheless, this formal, modal inferiority is one of 
Woman's essential, distinctive conditions as "Woman. In 
no Tvise whatever is it a punishment, or degradation, or 
consequent of the Fall. It antedates the Fall itself. In 
her very make-up, as formed out of the First Man, Woman 
is, in the matter of technical, formal headship, Man's sub- 
ordinate. And well is it in these days of Woman's Eights, 
falsely and stupidly so called — these days when Woman is 
invited to unsex herself, and usurp the reins, and the toga, 
and the baton — to go back to first principles, ay, to her 
own Genesis, even to the Kib of the Sleeping Adam. Ko 
wonder that so many of the so-called Reformers — Heaven 
save the mark ! — are infidels. Paul and Moses, to say noth- 
ing of facts and common-sense, are inconveniently, outrage- 
ously, in their way. 

,, , ,^ , „ JSTevertheless, in spite of all this, 

(6.)— Woman's Es- . t, • i* -^r 

Bential Equality. Woman is essentially one with Man. 
Listen to the First Man's speech : " This 



228 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh : this shall 
be called Woman, because from Man was she taken." Man 
and "Woman, then, considered in their essence, are a Unity. 
But, observe, nnity implies complexity ; that is to say. Uni- 
ty implies likeness and unlikeness, sameness and difference, 
community and diversity. 

n ^_^ "t f Consider, then, first : the community 

Man and AVoman. 0^ Msiii and Woman. According to the 
Parable of Eden, Woman is generically 
of the same nature with Man, bone of his bones and flesh 
of his flesh. Their community is something more than 
mere similarity of nature : it is in very fact con-nature it- 
self. Woman's very name is Isha, i. e., Man-ness, because 
from Ish, i. e., Man, was she taken. And " Woman was 
taken," some one has significantly said, " neither from Man's 
foot, nor from Man's head, but from Man's side ; " that is 
to say, from near Man's heart ; and the heart is at bottom 
the world's real Sceptre; and therefore Woman is the 
world's real monarch. Ay, 

"More royalty in woman's heart 
Than dwells within the crowned majesty 
And sceptred anger of a hundred kings." 

— ("EiCHELiEU," iii. 2.) 

Woman, then, is something more than Man's image or 
counterpart : Woman is Man's essential Peer, his Alter 
jE'go, his Second Self. There is nothing, then, in the es- 
sential nature of Woman which should exclude her from 
the rights, privileges, activities, or duties, which inherently 
belong to the genus Homo. Whatever is legitimately open 
to Map, not indeed as a man, but as a Human Being, is 
equally open to Woman: for both are equally human. 
Woman as well as Man can feel, think, reason, imagine, 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 229 

observe, classify, generalize, deduce. Woman as well as 
Man can sell goods, plan buildings, make statues, resolve 
nebulie, discover elements, diagnosticate diseases, construct 
philosophies, write ^epics. There is nothing in the nature 
of Woman as Woman which should forbid her having a 
specific employment or vocation as distinctively as the 
brother brought up by her side. True, there are some 
things which Woman cannot do as well as Man : not be- 
cause she is inferior in any of the essential attributes of 
humanity, but simply because she is inferior in the acci- 
dental element of physical strength. It is no more to 
Woman's discredit that she does not figure well in leaving 
her nursery to shoe a horse than it is to Man's discredit 
that he docs not figure well in leaving his anvil to rock 
the baby. While, then, many of the occupations which 
Man has hitherto claimed as exclusively his own are in 
the growing wisdom of society admitted to be equally 
open to Woman, there are cei*tain other occupations from 
w^hich Woman is manifestly excluded. Evidently she is 
not called to hold the plough, or wield the sledge, or fell 
the forest, or hoist the mainsail, or seize the burglar, or 
harangue the caucus. ^Nevertheless, in all that constitu- 
ently belongs to Man as Man, in all that makes up the 
essentiality of his being, Woman is one with Man, sharing 
his nature, his inspiration, his imageship, his sonhood. 
Thank God, we are living in an age of the world when 
St. Paul's doctrine, that in Christ Jesus there is neither 
male nor female, but both are one in Him (Gal. iii. 2S), is 
beginning to be really believed, and when Woman, as 
Man's essential peer, is resuming those majestic, Heaven- 
endowed proportions which she wore in that far-off Sixth 
Day when God created Man in His own likeness, male 
and female created He them, and He blessed them, and 



230 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

called their name Man, in tlie day when they were created 

(Gen. V. 1, 2). 

Question of Worn- " ^^* ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ J«^ g^^^g *« Carry 

an Suffrage. tliis doctrine of Woman's Equality?" 

I hear you asking. "Do you propose 
to extend it as far as the right of Suffrage ? " Yes, I do, 
I reply, and I trust that my answer is sufficiently unam- 
biguous. But observe precisely the ground on which I 
base the right of Woman to the Suffrage. It is not on the 
ground so generally, and as I think mistakenly, assumed 
by the over-zealous leaders of the Woman's movement, 
viz., that the right of the elective franchise is one of the 
essential, elemental rights inherent in humanity as such. 
The right of the elective franchise is, according to the 
theory of our political institutions, and as I think justly, 
only an incidental, contingent right, to be regulated by the 
Constitution and statutes. And, as a matter of fact. Govern- 
ment does discriminate. E. g., it- discriminates in favor of 
the adult, and against the "infant," or minor. It dis- 
criminates in favor of an alien — ^but a brief time in our 
country — an alien, it may be, ignorant, drunken, scarcely 
able to pay his poll-tax of fifty cents, and having no hered- 
itary interest in the country; and against a native-born, 
adult, educated, virtuous woman, paying, it may be, hun- 
dreds of dollars of taxes, and having an inherited, pro- 
found interest in the welfare of the country. Since, then, 
the right of Suffrage is, as a matter of fact, a discriminated 
right, I base the right of Woman to the elective franchise 
on the ground of equity and of policy, that is to say, pru- 
dence. The person, whether man or woman, who pays 
taxes has the right to have a voice in deciding who the 
Government shall be that imposes and receives those taxes. 
That is simple, sheer equity. And the man who does 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 231 

not concede the riglit to every tax-payer, whether man or 
woman, is an nnjust man. Again : the right of Suffrage 
being a conferrable right, to be apportioned and regulated 
by the GoyernmenT^r Constitution (and the Constitution 
is the Government), the right should be conferred emi- 
nently on those who, in virtue of being particularly inter- 
ested in having a good government, and also in virtue of 
being especially endowed w^ith the instinct of propriety, 
are likely to use the right of Sujffrage intelligently and 
patriotically. And who are likely to use this right intelli- 
gently and patriotically, if it be not the women of Amer- 
ica ? Who is likely to vote wisely, if it be not the wives, 
the value of whose husbands' property depends on a stable, 
just government, the mothers w^hose sons and daughters 
are to be the America of the next generation 1 We hear 
a great deal said in our day about Civil Service Reform. 
I will tell you the surest way of reforming the Civil Ser- 
vice, and this not only as managed by the Administration, 
but also as managed by Congress and Legislatures and City 
Councils : it is by appointing your polling-places elsewhere 
than next door to a groggery, and by inviting your mothers 
and wives and sisters to deposit ballots of their own free 
choice, and thereby save the country. America's salvation 
lies under God in America's Women. It is precisely be- 
cause I desire to conserve our Glorious Past that I plant 
myself on the platform of Woman Suffrage. There are 
times when Radicalism is the intensest Conservatism. 
And this is precisely one of those times. 

But, although this allusion to the 
,/"' ~ ,\V^^^^ ^ Riffht of AYomen to the Suffrao-e was 

Man and Woman. ^ ^ ^ . . 

pertinent to the topic in hand, yet it is 
but an incidental point, and so we return to the main 
theme under this head of discussion, viz. : the essential 



232 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

unity of Man and Woman. ^Nevertheless, tliis nnity, as I 
have already said, implies diversity as well as community. 
In fact, as was shown in the Lecture on the Genesis of 
Lands, diversity is essential to unity. Diversities, coor- 
dinated, and duly bounded, make unity. Recall the differ- 
ence between a unit and a unity. A unit is a homogeneous 
one — e. g., an atom of oxygen, or an atom of hydrogen. 
A unity is a blended, coherent, systematized collection of 
diverse ones in a state of homogeneousness or oneness — 
e. g., the union of atoms of oxygen and hydrogen, forming 
a molecule of water. It is the blending of different and 
complemental colors^e. g., blue and orange, green and red, 
purple and yellow — which yields the harmonious white. 
Looking at the point under discussion in this light, there is 
no superber instance of Unity than Man and Woman. Re- 
call the phraseology of our passage : " Jehovah God said : 
' It is not good that the Man should be alone ; I will make 
him a help meet for him : " that is to say, a helper suited to 
him, one over against him, correspondent to him, comple- 
mental to him, matching him. It was the Birth of Society. 
Woman is something more than a supplement or appendix 
to Man ; Woman is Man's complement. Man and Woman 
are the two poles of the sphere of humanity, opposite and 
complemental, complemental because opposite. And the 
one pole implies the other. Legislate as much as you please, 
you cannot abolish the fact of the sexes. Constituently, 
elementally the same, Man and Woman are organized on 
different bases. Like the stars, they differ in their glory 
(1 Cor. XV. 41). Each has certain excellences which are pe- 
culiar to each, and distinctive of each. Man's excellences 
are virtues ; Woman's excellences are graces ; and I sus- 
pect that, in the judgment of Him Who seeth in secret, the 
graces are diviner than the virtues. It is Woman's delicate 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. §33 

beauty of spirit which gives lier the riglit to win, and 
which, thank God, does win, Man's sturdy love. It is 
"Woman's physical weakness which constitutes her claim on 
Man's physical strength. It is Woman's purity which con- 
stitutes her claim on Man's reverence. It is Woman's 
womanliness which constitutes her claim on Man's manli- 
ness. ISTo manner of sympathy, then, have I with those 
would-be reformers who, in their noisy and witless cham- 
pionship of what they imagine are Woman's Hights, fancy 
they can override the everlasting laws of ]^ature, and turn 
Woman into Man. Only one thing in this world is feebler 
than a womanized man ; it is a manized w^oman. It is 
only as Woman remains womanly that Woman remains im- 
perial. It is well, then, let me say again, that in these 
days of confused, riotous, infidel reform, we go back ,to 
first principles, even the Eden of the primal, sinless, per- 
fect Pair. In so doing we shall learn to honor Man and 
Woman equally. For each is essential to the other. And 
here let the same apostle who has taught us touching Wom- 
an's formal subordination teach us touching Woman's es- 
sential, necessary equality : " ISTeither is the Man without 
the Woman, nor the Woman without the Man, in the 
Lord ; for even as the Woman is from the Man, so also 
is the Man by the Woman ; and both are from God " 
(1 Cor. xi. 11-12). Each is incomplete without the other. It 
is the union of the hemispheres which makes the sphere. 
For so the Laureate sings : 

" For woman is not undeveloped man, 
But diverse : could we make lier as the man, 
Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
Yet in the long years likor must they grow ; 
The man be more of woman, she of man ; 



234 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

ISTor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words ; 

And so these twain upon the skirts of Time 

Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each. 

Distinct in individualities. 

But like each other even as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ; 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm ; 

Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 

Consonant chords that shiver to one note: 

The two-celled heart beating, with one full stroke, 

Life."— (" The Peincess.") 

Tliis, then, is our first lesson : the Unity of Man and 
Woman. " This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my 
flesh ; this shall be called Woman, because from Man was 
she taken." 

But our passage teaches a second les- 
• *T f-^ .•'' " son : Marriasre is a Divine Institution : 

vine Institution. c) 

" Therefore shall a man leave his father 
and his mother and shall cleave to his wife ; and they shall 
be one flesh " — i. e., one personality. The words are mem- 
orable as being the first statement of the Old Testament 
that is cited in the I^ew. The Pharisees came to Jesus 
tempting Him, and saying : " Is it lawful for a man to put 
away his wife for every cause ? " Jesus, answering, said to 
them : " What did Moses command you ? Have ye not 
read that from the beginning of the Creation God made 
them male and female, saying : ' For this cause shall a man 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 235 

leave liis father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, 
and they two shall be one flesh ? ' So, then, they are no 
more two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath 
joined together, let not man put asunder " (Matt. xix. 3-G). I 
know, indeed, that human legislation declares, and proper- 
ly enough, that any given mamage is a civil contract, or 
rather status. Nor can human legislation guard with a 
jealousy too keen the sacredness of the marriage-bond. 
That sacredness is the aegis of our firesides, the palladium 
of our homes. N'evertheless, marriage is something more 
than a civil contract or status, something more than a human 
device. Marriage is a Divine Institution, older than His- 
tory, or Fall, or Sabbath ; as old as Eden and the Primal 
Pair. Marriage is a constituent, elemental fact of Human- 
ity. As such, it is as much a Divine Fact as the Sabbath, or 
the Stars, or the Universe itself. In the very fact of creat- 
ing the Woman and presenting her to the Man, the Lord of 
all ordained the Marriage Institution. Older than any other 
human relation, it takes precedence of them all : " For this 
cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall 
cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh, one per- 
sonality." Thus the very idea of marriage, as existing in 
the Creator's mind, precludes its dissolution : " No longer 
twain, but one flesh." Only the God Who joins can dis- 
join. What, therefore, God hath joined together let not 
man put asunder. Accordingly, Marriage being a Divine 
Institution, it is an intensely religious Ordinance. Well 
may we speak of the " holy estate of Matrimony." Most 
fitting, then, is it that the marriage-ceremony should be 
ecclesiastical — that is to say, religious. 'Not that the min- 
ister really ^veds the couple ; it is God Who joins them. 
The minister's function is not executive ; if is only declara- 
tive. But the minister is not omniscient. Alas, tliat he 



236 STUDIES IN THE CREATINE WEEK. 

should ever be mistaken, declaring those wedded whom God 
has not joined together ! J^evertheless, marriage is a Di- 
vine Ordinance, and as snch intensely religions. Consider, 
then, well, O young friends ! what you may be proposing. 
Marriage is, in sight of God, as sacred, solenm an act as 
Baptism. God grant that ye who are thinking of matri- 
mony may, indeed, be fellow-heirs of the Grace of Life ; 
that your prayers be not hindered (i Peter iii. 7). This, then, 
is the second lesson of our passage : Marriage a Divine In- 
stitution. 

But our passage teaches a third les- 
..^•~^^'^ ^""'^^K son; it is this : The earthly Marriage is 

Marriage a Type of t i . 

the Heavenly. ^ ^JP^ ^^ "^^^^ Heavenly — that is to say, 

in the story of the Unfallen Adam and 
Eve we may read a parable of the Story of Jesus Christ 
and His Church. We are expressly told that Adam was 
the figure or type of Him Who was to come (Rom. v. 14), and 
that the Church has been betrothed as a pure Virgin to one 
Husband, even Jesus Christ (2 Cor. xi. 2). In fact, this con- 
ception of Jesus Christ and His Church under figure of 
Bridegroom and Bride underlies the w^hole Scripture from 
Genesis to Eevelation. It is foreshadowed in the Parable 
of Eden. It is typified in the Spiritual Marriage between 
Jehovah and His ancient Israel : " Thou shalt no more be 
termed Azubah, i. e.. Forsaken, neither shall thy land any 
more be termed Shammah, i. e., Desolate ; but thou shalt 
be called Hephzibah, i. e., My Delight, and thy land Beu- 
lah, i. e., Married : for Jehovah delighteth in thee, and thy 
land shall be married : for thy Maker is thy Husband, the 
Lord of hosts is His name " (Is. ixii. 4). It is the theme of 
the Forty-fifth Psalm, wherein are set forth the personal 
beauty, the warlike prowess, the divine majesty, the just 
government of a royal Bridegroom, and the gorgeous at- 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 237 

tire and retinue of a royal Bride. It is the underlying 
conception of tlie Canticles, or Solomon's Song of Songs. 
It furnishes the Prophets with their most frequent and 
powerful imagery iHT'their denunciations of Israel's co- 
quetry with idols and open apostasy, setting forth her sins 
in tliis respect under the various terms of marital infidelity. 
It is expressly and emphatically asserted in the New Testa- 
ment. Let me cite a single example : " Husbands, love 
your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave 
Himself up for her ; that He might sanctify her, cleansing 
her by the washing — by the bath, in the laver of the water 
of the Word : that He Himself might present to Himself 
the Church glorious, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any 
such thing : but that she might be holy and without blem- 
ish. So ought husbands also to love their own wives as 
their own bodies. He who loveth his own wife loveth 
himself : for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourish- 
eth and cherisheth it, even as Clirist also doth the Church : 
because we are members of His body (being of His flesh 
and of His bones). For this cause shall a man leave father 
and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two 
shall be one flesh. This mystery is a great one : but I say 
it in regard to Christ and the Church " (Eph. v. 25-32).' And 
this mystery of the Heavenly Bridegroom and Bride was 
foreshadowed, let me repeat, from the very beginning, even 
in Eden's primeval nuptial. And now let us ponder some 
of the analogies between the two Bridals : the Bridal in the 
Eden that has been and the Bridal in the Eden that is to be.' 
(a.)-Christ lUm- ^^^^' ^^^'^t, as Evc owcd her origin 
self the Origin of Uis to Adam, SO docs the Churcli owe her 
Church. origin to Jesus Christ. She, at least, is 

1 See al8o Ex. xxxiv. 15, 16; Jer. iii.; E/ek. xvi., xxili. ; Hosea i , ii. ; Matt. ix. 15, xxiL 
1-4, XXV. 1-13; John iii. 29 ; 2 Cor. xi. 2, 3 ; Kev. xix. 6-9, xxi. 2-9, xxii. 17, etc. 



238 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

no instance of Spontaneous Generation. She is no Au- 
tochthon, self-orient from humanity or ^N^ature. Slue is, 
so to speak, a Divine Gemmation, budding from the bleed- 
ing side of the Second and true Adam, pierced on the 
cross, and sleeping in that other Garden which, alas ! was 
no Eden, but a cemetery, out of whose sepulchre sprung 
the true Tree of Life/ In other words, Jesus Christ is 
the Head of the Church, which is His Body. 

JS'evertheless, secondly: As Adam 

(5.)-ChristandHis ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^. 
Church a Unity. . ^ ' 

that IS to say, one personality, so are 
Jesus Christ and His Church. As such, they have com- 
munity of nature. As Eve was called Woman, because 
from Man had she been taken, being bone of his bones and 
flesh of his flesh, so the Second Eve, even the Church, is 
one with the Second Adam, even the Christ, being mem- 
bers of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. v. so). 
As such, they share a common life, being one in nature, in 
character, in experience, in temptation, in passion, in tri- 
umph ; she His follower, sparkling with the jewels of His 
Graces, continuing with Him steadfastly in His tempta- 
tions (Luke xxii. 28), filling up what is yet behind of His afflic- 
tions for His Body's sake, which is the Church (Col. i. 24), 
rising with Him from the dead (Col. iii. i), overcoming with 
Him, sitting down with Him on His throne (Rev. iii. 21), joint 
heir with Him (Rom. viii. 17) to His patrimony of the worlds 
(llcb. i. 2). ^ot that the Church has yet attained to all this; 

^ The idea is as old as Augustine, but lie subsidizes it curiously in behalf of Sacramental- 
ism. " At the beginning of the human race the Woman was made of a rib taken from the 
side of the man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church 
should be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ, 
Whose side, as He hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed 
from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church is 
' built up.' For Scripture used this very word, not saying, ' He formed,' or ' framed,' but 
'built her up into a woman;' whence also the Apostle speaks of ' the building up of the 
body of Christ, which is the Church.' "— (" City op God," Book xxii., ch. IT.) 



GENESIS OF WOMAK 239 

Slie is still but a cliild, speaking as a child, feeling as a 
cliild, thinking as a child. But the day is approaching 
when that which is perfect shall come, and that which is 
in part shall end. Then shall she put away childish things 
(1 Cor. xiii. 9-11). Then shall she attain to the unity of the 
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a per- 
fect man, unto the proportions of a full-grown personality, 
even unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ (Eph. iv. 13), standing before Him in very tinith as His 
help meet and complemental, His Peer in the Second Eden 
as Eve was Adam's peer in the first. Then shall He indeed 
proudly present her to Himself as His Lady-elect, even the 
Church glorious and holy, without sjDot or wrinkle or blem- 
ish or any such thing (Eph. v. 21). Even now, in view of 
that magnificent certainty, she may well be called by her 
Divine Husband's name — Christ, Christian : KvpLo^, KupiaKrj, 
Kirche, Kirk, Church. Being thus one with Him Who is 
indeed the Lord, she also herself is in very, truth Lordly, 
Heiress to the LTniverse by a double right, the right of 
Eden's Lnage Commission and Calvary's Blood-sealed 
Charter. O Church of the living God, betrothed as a 
chaste Yirgin to one Husband, even Christ, beware lest by 
any means, as the Serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, so 
your minds should be corrupted from the sim23licity which 
is in Christ, led away from your single-heartedness toward 

Him (2 Cor. xi. 2, 3). 

Once more : as there was but one 
(c.)— As but One ^Ydam and one Eve, so there is but one 

Christ, so but One ^^ . , ^ r^^ ^ tt 

qi^^^j.qI^ Christ and one Church. How mis- 

taken, how egotistic, how sinful the 
sanctity of Catherine of Alexandria, and Catherine of Si- 
enna, in fancying each for herself that she was the spouse 
of Christ ! No, as there is but one Bridegroom, so there is 



240 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

but one Spoase. And that Sponse is the one Churcli of 
the living God, of whatever land or age or sect, who call 
upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and 
ours (1 Cor. i. 2). I^either Christ nor His Church is a Mon- 
strosity ; neither the one hydra-headed, nor the other hun- 
dred-bodied. Many stones indeed, yet but one Temple 
(Eph. ii. 20-22) ; many branches, yet but one Vine (John xv. 5) ; 
many sheep, yet but one Flock and one Shepherd (John x. 16) ; 
many members, yet but one body (Rom. xii. 4, 5) ; many para- 
nymphs, or virgins (Matt. xxv. i-io), yet but one Bride. Ay, 
Monogamy is the law alike for both Edens. " I beseech 
you then, dearly beloved, that ye walk worthy of the call- 
ing wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meek- 
ness and long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, en- 
deavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
peace. There is one Body, and one Spirit, even as ye were 
called in one Hope of your calling, one Lord, one Faith, 
one Baptism, one God and Father of all. Who is over all 
and through all and in all (Eph. iv. 1-6). For even as the 
body is one and hath many members, and all the members 
of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ ; 
for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, 
whetlier Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free ; and we 
were all made to drink of one Spirit " (i Cor. xii. 12, 13). 

" Head of Thy Church beneath, 
The catholic, the true, 
On all her members breathe. 
Her broken frame renew ; 
Then shall Thy perfect will be done, 
When Christians love and live as one." 

— (Robinson.) 

Thus was the marriage in the Eden that has been the 
type and the prophecy of the Marriage in the Eden that is 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 241 

to be. That was the symbol, this is the Substance ; that 
the passing shadow, this the abiding Eeality ; that the para- 
ble, this the Interpretation. Yes, the last Adam is older 
than the first ; the Church of the living God older than the 
Mother of all living (Gen. iii. 20). And so St. Paul, in de- 
claring to us his great mystery concerning Christ and His 
Church — to wit, that we are members of His body, being 
of His flesh and His bones, and so repeating Adam's own 
words in Eden — did ever, as was the wont of his own Master, 
utter things which had been kept secret from the founda- 
tion of the world (Matt. xiii. 85). Heaven grant that these 
natural relationships of ours may indeed accomplish in us 
the purpose for which they were ordained ; namely, to train 
us for the spiritual, teaching us through the blessed hints 
of the earthly marriage how to secure a share in the True 
and Everlasting Bridal. So shall we be ready to meet the 
Bridegroom, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband 
(Rev. xxi. 2). So sliall we be ready for the Midnight Cry, 
" Lo, the Bridegroom cometli ! " (Matt. xxv. 6). 

And thus we come to speak of that 
4. — The Bride- |^iesge(;[ event : the Brideo^room's prom- 
groom's Promised . , -r, -r, . . i" i 
ji^^^^^ ised Keturn. i^or now it is only the 

espousal time, the Church's secret be- 
trothal as a pure Virgin to Christ ; then shall be the open, 
everlasting Bridal, even the Bridegroom's joyous presenta- 
tion of the Church to Himself before all the Universe in 
all her unspeakable beauty. Then shall it be seen that 
though for a small moment He had forsaken us, it was that 
He might with great mercies and everlasting kindness 
gather us (Is. liv. 1). Heaven speed that blessed hour ! Even 
now may it be ours to hear as it were the voice of a great 
multitude, and as the sound of many waters, and as the 
sound of mighty thundcrings, saying, " Hallelujah ! For 
^11 



242 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the Lord God omnipotent reignetli. Let us be glad and 
rejoice, and give to Him the glory. For the Marriage of 
the Lamb is come, and His Wife hath made herself ready. 
Blessed are they who are called to the Marriage Supper of 
the Lamb " (Rev. xix. 6-9). 

" Ascend, Beloved, to the joy ; 
The festal day is come : 
To-night the Lamb doth feast His own. 
To-night He with His Bride sits down, 
To-night puts on the spousal crown, 
In the great upper room. 

" Sorrow and sighing are no more,. 
The weeping hours are past; 
To-night the waiting will be done, 
To-night the wedding robe put on, 
The glory and the joy begun ; 
The crown has come at last. 

"Ascend, Beloved, to the feast; 
Make haste. Thy day is come ; 
Thrice blest are they the Lamb doth call. 
To share the heavenly festival. 
In the new Salem's palace hall, 

Our everlasting home ! " — (Bonae.) 

Friends, no one will sup with Him 
The Bolted Door. .^ i.eaven who has not been wont to 
sup with Him on earth. Listen, then, again, to the Bride- 
groom's knock : ^' Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; 
if any one hear My voice and open the door, I will come in 
to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me " (Rev. iii. 20). 
O friend, that knocking wdll not continue forever. Per- 
sist in keeping thy door closed, and thou, too, shalt ere 
long knock at a closed door. " While they went to buy, 
the Bridegroom came ; and they who were ready went in 



GENESIS OF WOMAN. 243 

with Him to the Marriage-feast ; and the door was shut. 
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, 
open to us. But He^ijswered and said : Yerily I say unto 
you, I know you not" (Matt. xxv. 10-12). 

" ' Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill ! 
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.' 
' Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.' 

" ' No light had we : for that we do repent ; 
And learning this, the Bridegroom will relent.' 
' Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.' 

" ' No light ; so late ! and dark and chill the night! 
Oh, let us in, that we may find the light ! ' 
' Too late ; too late ! ye cannot enter now.' 

" ' Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet ? 
Oh, let us in, though late, to kiss His feet ! ' 
'No, no ; too late ! ye cannot enter now.' " 

—C' Guinevere.") 

But I cannot bear to close so sadly, 
^^jj ° " Listen, then, to the Bridegroom's cheery 

call ; " The voice of my Beloved ! Be- 
hold, lie Cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping 
upon the hills. My Beloved speaketh, and saith unto me : 

"Arise, My love. My fair one, and come away. 
For, lo, the winter is past. 
The rain is over, and gone ; 
The flowers appear on the earth ; 
The time of the singing of birds is come. 
And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land; 
The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, 
And the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance. 
Arise, My love, My fair one, and come away." 

—(Cant. ii. 8-13.) 



244 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Yes, Thou Bridegroom of the Church, we will arise 
and follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUEE XIIL 



GENESIS OF THE SxVBBATII. 



"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 
of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He 
had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work 
which He had made. And God hlessed the seventh day, and sancti- 
fied it : because tliat in it He had rested from all His work which God 
created and made." — Genesis ii. 1-3. 

I. —Explanation FiEST of all, let us attend to tlie Ex- 

of the Passnge. planation of tlie Passage. 

And, first, the Divine Cessation from 

the cTcStrPrL^f Creative Work : " Tluis were finished 
the heavens and the earth, and all their 
host : and on the Seventh Day God ended His Work 
which He made." But observe precisely the kind of 
activity from which Deity ceased on the Seventh Day : it 
was not the activity of administration, either in Providence 
or in Morals — our Father w^orketh hitherto (John v. il): but 
it was the activity of creating : " God ended all His work 
which He created in making it." And science strikingly 
confirms the hoaiy Archive. However much scientists 
may disagree as to the origin of the universe, or the age 
of the globe, or the character and method of the geologic 
processes, or the antiquity of man, they all agree in one 
point — to wit : Man himself was the last to appear on this 
earth's stage. 



246 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Secondly: The Creator's Kesting. 

— le icaors cc ^^^^ q^^ rested on the Seventh Day 

Eesting. , ^ 

from all His work which He made." 
" But how is this possible ? " you ask me. " Does not 
resting imply fatigue, weakness, infirmity, finiteness ? 
Does not His own Book declare : ^ The everlasting God, 
Jehovah, Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, 
neither is weary ' (Is. xl. 28) ? How, then, can Infinite God 
be said to rest ? " Observe, then, first, and in a general 
way, the poverty of human speech and human thought 
when Deity is the theme. How can the finite ever take 
in the Infinite, the bounded the Boundless ? Infinite God 
can become known to us only in the measures of human 
capacities, through the interpretations and hints of human 
relations and feelings. Hence, all our thought and speech 
of Him is and must be in imagery. Hence the frequent 
Scripture representations of Him under figures of human 
organs and affections : e. g., the Hand of the Lord, the 
Eye of the Lord, the Yoice of the Lord, the Lord did 
so and so, etc. To speak of Him as having these human 
organs, or as doing this and that thing in connection with 
days and years, or any human notations of time, is to 
speak of Him after the manner of men. ]^evertheless, 
we cannot conceive Him except in measures of our own 
finiteness : and so we are forced to speak of Him, as 
does also the Scripture, as being situate in Space and act- 
ing in Time. Thus we talk of Him as creating and as 
resting, of His Six Days' creative working and His Sev- 
enth Day's Eest. l^ot that it was absolutely so, but that 
it appears so to us in our finiteness. God's seeming to 
rest was a sign, not of the Creator's fatigue, but of His 
condescension to human finiteness. He no more rested 
in the sense of taking refreshment than He uttered the 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 247 

Creative " God-saids " in audible articulations, or breathed 
into the Man's nostrils, or took from him one of his 
ribs and turned it into a Woman. But, while this is 
true, there is a senserln which even God may be said to 
have rested : it was the rest of holy, blessed, festal con- 
templation. The work of creation w^as finished, not only 
in the sense of being ended, but also in the sense of being 
perfected. Man's works, alas ! are oftener ended than 
finished. Twice only in this world of ours has that word 
— " Finished " — been used in absolute truth : first, in the 
end of the first Creation, when the Maker of heaven and 
earth had created the Man and the Woman in His own 
image and likeness, and so were finished the heavens and 
the earth and all their host : and secondly, in the end of 
the second Creation, when the same Maker of heaven and 
earth restored on the Cross the lost image and likeness, and 
so exclaimed : "It is finished ! " (John xix. 30). And how 
intense must have been the Creator's delight as He sur- 
veyed His finished work, and pronounced it very good ! 
Even in this world of imperfections and failures, where 
our ideals are so seldom reached, how intense the delight, 
e. g., the artist sometimes feels as he gazes on his finished 
statue, or picture, or building ! He not only ceases from 
toil : he verily rests — ^the rest not of repose, but of joy. 
Even so, if I may venture to compare Creator with creat- 
ure, did the Maker of the universe rest on the Seventh 
Day. It was the rest of a holy, festal celebration over a 
perfected work — a perfect filling-out of a Divine Ideal — 
an absolute equilibrium of Plan and Execution. It was 
the Sabbath of God. 

Thirdly : The Sanctification of the 

r.'i~c ^!,^^^^^ Seventh Day: "And God blessed the 
of the Sabbath-Day. i t^ ..,.,, 

Seventh Day, and sanctmed it. 



248 STUDIES IN TIIS CREATIVE WEEK. 

" And God blessed the Seventh 
(a.)-Sevcn the p „ j^^ ^^^ familiar with the Bible 

Scriptural Number. n '-, 

can fail to be struck with the frequency 
with which it mentions the number seven. Let me give 
some instances. Seven days was ]^oah allowed in which 
to stock his ark with the preservers of the Animal King- 
dom, and of each kind of the clean animals he was to take 
seven (Gen. vii. 2-4). Seven days elapsed between each of 
the three missions of his dove (Gen. viii. 8-12). Seven years 
did Jacob serve for Leah, and seven more for Rachel 
(Gen. xxix. 18-28). Seven well-favored kine and seven ill- 
favored, seven full ears of corn and seven blasted, did 
Pharaoh see in his dreams : seven years of plenty and 
seven years of famine did Egypt experience (Gen. xli.). 
Seven altars did Balak set up, and thereon offered seven 
bullocks and seven rams (Num. xxiii. i, 2). Seven was to be 
the aggregate number of the Holy Convocations of the 
Hebrew Year (Lev. xxiii.). The seventh day was to be the 
Sabbath-day : the seventh week after Passover the Sabbath- 
week : the seventh month the Sabbath-month : the seventh 
year the Sabbath-year : the seven times seventh year the 
great Sabbath- Year of the Sabbath-years : i. e., the year of 
Jubilee. Seven weeks were appointed as the interval be- 
tween Pentecost and Passover : seven days as the length 
of the Feasts of Passover and Tabernacles : seven days 
were the priests to be in course of consecration : seven 
things were to be offered in sacrifice : seven utensils were 
to be the indispensables of the Tabernacle, and the candle- 
stick was to be seven-branched : seven days were appointed 
for ceremonial lustration, and for the interval between 
birth and circumcision. Seven was the number in com- 
pacts, in treaties of peace, in marriage settlements. Seven 
is solemnly embalmed in the Hebrew term for oath, the 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 249 

term signifying to swear literally meaning to do seven 
times. Seven days was Jericho surrounded, and on tlic 
seventh day it was surrounded by seven priests blowing 
seven tnimpets (Josh.^cj. Seven times was E^aaman bidden 
to dip himself in Jordan (2 Kings v. 9). Seven periods were 
to pass over Nebuchadnezzar in his insanity (Dan. iv.). In 
the Restitution the light of the Sun is to be sevenfold, as 
the light of seven days (Is. xxx. 26). Jesus Christ Himself 
was the seventy-seventh from Adam, and He bids us for- 
give not only seven times, but also seventy times seven 
(Matt, xviii. 22). Seven deacons were appointed by the infant 
church (Acts vi.). Seven is the Apocalyptic numeral : e. g., 
the seven churches, the seven spirits, the seven candle- 
sticks, the seven stars, the seven seals, the seven horns, the 
seven eyes, the seven angels, the seven trumpets, the seven 
thunders, the seven plagues, the seven vials, the seven 
visions, the sevenfold doxology to God and the Lamb 
(Rev. passim). But why citc more? Holy Scripture, from 
Genesis to Revelation, teems with this mystic numeral 
seven. And for aught we know, seven is still the Sym- 
bolic, Dominical number of God's Administration, regu- 
lating the whole world's history, from His rest on the Sev- 
enth Day in Eden to His Church's Rest on the Seventh 
Day in the Eden to come. If you ask me why the Script- 
ure selects this numeral seven, as its favorite, regent num- 
ber, I cannot answer. A vast amount of ingenuity has 
been spent on the problem, but I have never met with any 
satisfactory solution. Perhaps we shall understand this, 
and many other similar riddles, when that whicli is perfect 
is come, and w^e shall no longer behold as in a glass darkly, 
or enigmatically, but face to face (i Cor. xiii. 12). Meantime, 
all I ask you to observe in this connection is this : Seven 
is tlie tonic, or key-note, of the scale of the Hebrew numera- 



250 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tion. And this fact, I have no doubt, is owing to the 
venerable circumstance that seven was the completing, 
perfecting number of the Creative Week. 

" And Grod blessed the Seventh Daj 
Da Sanctified ^^^^ ^ ^^^ Sanctified it " — that is to say, He 
separated it from the other Six Days of 
the Creative Week, setting it apart, distinguishing it, con- 
secrating it, hallowing it. Not that He made the Seventh 
Day holy, as though the other Six Days were unholy ; but 
He made the Seventh Day peculiar, as though the other 
Six Days were common. He made it sacred by resting on 
it. He did not rest on the Seventh Day because it was 
hallowed ; but the Seventh Day became hallowed because 
He rested on it. " God blessed the Seventh Day, and hal- 
lowed it, because on it He rested from all His work which 
God created and made." It is the colossal plinth on which 
is based Sinai's Fourth Commandment : " Remember the 
Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and 
do all thy work : but the Seventh Day is a Sabbath (a Rest- 
day) to the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any 
work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, 
nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that 
is within thy gates. For in Six Days the Lord made heaven 
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the 
Seventh Day : wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day 
— (the Rest-day) and hallowed it" (Ex. xx. 8-11). What 
though the seven days of the Sinaitic week were ordinary 
days of twenty-four hours each, while the Seven Days of 
the Creative Week were extraordinary days of indefinite 
length ? It affects not the reason which the Lawgiver as- 
signs for observing the Seventh Day as a Sabbath. That 
reason is based, not on the length of the Days, but on the 
fact that on the Seventh of the Days, whatever their length. 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. ^51 

tlie Creator rested. And that Seventh Day of the Crea- 
tive Week still continues. Altliough thousands of years 
have swept by since God ended His work of Creation, it 
is still His Sabbatli,^er^Kest-day. "Works of necessity — i. 
e., works of providence and mercy — He still carries on : 
"My Father worketh hitherto, and I w^ork " (John v. 17). 
But Creation is not a work of necessity. That work He 
ended at the close of the far-off Sixth Day, and ever since 
has rested. This, in fact, is the underlying thought of the 
fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The argu- 
ment of the chapter, in brief, is this : " God as Creator is 
resting from His works ; let us take care lest, a promise 
being left us of entering into His rest, any of us should 
seem to come short of it." There are, then, three Great 
Sabbaths : first, the Ionian Sabbath of God, resting from 
His Creative Work ; secondly, the weekly Sabbath of Mair, 
resting from his six days of toil ; and, thirdly, the eternal 
Sabbath of Heaven, even the Hest, the Sabbatismos, which 
still remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9). 

" When will my pilgrimage be done, 
The world's long week be o'er, 
That Sabbath dawn which needs no sun, 
Tliat Day which fades no more ? " 

— (Edmeston.) 

Such is the story of the Genesis of the Sabbath. As 

such, the Sabbath comes down to us venerable in all the 

hoariness of an immemorial antiquity, and imperial with 

all the sceptredom of the Creator's example. 

But there is a second account of the 

. "•~?^e*\^?'" Genesis of the Sabbath, to which I now 
trme of the Sabbath. . . r i i^i^ .• -nr-i 

mvite your most careiul attention. JMu- 

lenniums after our Sacred Chronicler caught glimpse of the 



252 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

resting Creator, that Creator Himself, having been bom 
of woman, and walking in the cornfields of Galilee, an- 
nounced : " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
for the Sabbath ; therefore, the Son of Man is Lord also 
of the Sabbath" (Mark ii. 23-28). It is one of the profonnd- 
est sayings of Him Who always spake profoundly. Let 
us now give to the saying our most studious and reverent 
attention. We learn from it — 

First : Man himself is the Basis of 
f th~"s rb th ^ ^^^^ Sabbath. " The Sabbath-day for 
Man was made, and not Man for the 
Sabbath-day " — that is to say, the Sabbath, like any other 
Divine institution or ordinance, whether in Nature or in 
Morals, was appointed on Man's account, for Man's bene- 
fit, and not vice versa. Let us go a little into detail. 

(a.) — Man Needs And, first, Man needs the Sabbath — 
the Sabbath for his i. e.. One day of rest after six days of 
Secular Nature. -j^qj} — f q^ ]-^is secular nature, alike bodily 

and mental. The testimony of physicians, physiologists, 
political economists, managers of industrial establishments, 
etc., is emphatic on this point. Let me cite some instances. 
Dr. John William Draper, the eminent physicist and author, 
writes as follows : " Out of the numberless blessings con- 
ferred on our race by the Church, the physiologist may be 
permitted to select one for remark, which, in an eminent 
manner, has conduced to our physical and moral well-being. 
It is the institution of the Sabbath-day. . . . 'No man can 
for any length of time pursue one avocation or one train 
of thought without mental, and therefore bodily, injury — 
nay, without insanity. The constitution of the brain is 
such that it must have its time of repose. Periodicity is 
stamped upon it. Nor is it enough that it is awake and in 
action by day, and in the silence of night obtains rest and 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 253 

repair ; that same periodicity, wliicli belongs to it as a 
whole, belongs to all its constituent parts. One portion of 
it cannot be called into incessant activity without the risk 
of injury. Its different regions, devoted to different func- 
tions, must have their separate times of rest. The excite- 
ment of one part must be coincident with a pause in the 
action of another. It is not possible for mental equilib- 
rium to be maintained with one idea, or one monotonous 
mode of life. . . . Thus a kind Providence so overrules 
events that it matters not in what station we may be, 
wealthy or poor, intellectual or lowly, a refuge is always 
at hand ; and the mind, worn out with one thing, turns to 
another, and its physical excitement is followed by physi- 
cal repose" ("Human Physiology," page 627). Lord Macaulay, 

in his speech before the House of Commons on the Ten 
Hours' Bill, spoke thus : " The natural difference between 
Campania and S23itzbergen is trifling when compared with 
the difference between a country inhabited by men full of 
mental and bodily vigor, and a country inhabited by men 
sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude. Therefore it is 
we are not poorer, but richer, because we have, through 
many ages, rested from our labors one day in seven. That 
day is not lost. "While industry is suspended, while the 
plough lies in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, 
while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going 
on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any pro- 
cess which is performed on more busy days. Man, the 
machine of machines — the machine compared with which 
all the contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are 
worthless— is repairing and winding up, so that he returns 
to his labors on the Monday with clearer intellect, with live- 
lier spirits, with renewed corj^oreal vigor " (" Speeches," vol. 
ii., page 28). Thus the Sabbath is the detent, or " ratchet in 



254 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the wheel of life," by regular interpositions of which life's 
machinery is prevented from turning back, and so failing. 
To him who has been toiling the six days, how sweetly does 
the Sabbath come as a day of repair for his jaded body, 
and of restful change for his weary brain ! 'Now may the 
stiffened fingers — which all the week have been grasping 
the plane, the awl, the crowbar, the type, the needle, the 
pen — be loosened ; and the cramped back, which has been 
wearily bending over spade or bench, anvil or ledger, be 
uplifted ; and the tethered intellect, which has been ab- 
sorbed in guiding the movements of hand or foot, be set 
free to expatiate at will amid the serene grandeurs of 
Truth, whether written on the pages of Scripture or Nsl- 
ture. Thus the Sabbath, surveyed as a compensation reser- 
voir, is as much a constituent part of the economy of J^a- 
ture as are the nutritive organs and processes, or the alterna- 
tion of day and night. "Well may it be called a Sabbath — i. 
e.. Rest. And here, let me remark in passing, and here only, 
is the proper sphere of Sabbath legislation. Society has 
the right to enforce the observance of the Sabbath on the 
ground of the public weal — that is to say, on sanitary, 
economic, and social grounds. But society has no right 
to enforce it on religious grounds. The State must not 
be permitted at this point, or at any other, to invade the 
empire of conscience. If we allow it to interfere at the 
point of Sabbath observance, we may allow it to interfere 
at any other point, say the Trinity, or Baptism, or the Sec- 
ond Advent. "We believe in the Church, we beheve in 
the State ; but we, on this side the Atlantic, do not believe 
in Church and State, or a State Church. We put not our 
confidence in princes (Psalm cxviii. 9), nor go down to Egypt 
for help, nor rely on chariots because they are many, nor 
trust in horsemen because they are strong (Is. xxxi. i). !N'ot 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 255 

bj might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saitli the Lord 

of Hosts (Zech. iv. 6)/ 

(^;.)_Man Needs Again: Man needs the Sabbath for 
the Sabbath for his liis-rehgious nature. He needs it as a 
Religious Nature. ^^j ^f conscious, formal, stately ac- 
knowledgment of the Divine Supremacy. He needs it as a 
day on which to dismiss wordly cares, and look through 
unobsti-ucted vistas into the opening heavens. An English 
gentleman was once inspecting a house in l^ewcastle, with 
a view of buying it. The landlord, after having shown 
him the premises, took him to an upper window, and re- 
marked : " You can see Durham Cathedral from this win- 
dow on Sundays." "How is this?" asked the visitor. 
" Because on Sundays there is no smoke from the factory 
chimneys." Ah, Man must have a day in which he can 
retire to some solitude, where his spirit — 

" With her best nurse, Contemplation, 
May plume lier feathers, and let pjrow her wings, 
That in the various bustle of resort 
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired." 

— ("COMUS.") 

And liow exquisitely the Sabbath meets Man's necessity ! 
The hushed bustle and din of life, the vacated Exchange, 
the closed factory, the barricaded shop, the arrested en- 
gine, tlie neatly-attired population, walking with subdued 

1 The recsnt prosecution in Pennsylvania of the estimable Daniel 0. Waldo, a Seventh- 
Day Baptist, for working on Sunday, although he had scrupulously obeyed the letter of the 
Fourth Ck>mmandment, is not only a blot on our administration of justice, but also a 
violation of one of the fundamental principles of the American theory of the State, 
namely : Keligious Liberty, or Eights of Personal Conscience. IIow clear and ringing 
the words of the English exiles of Amsterdam, published about 1612: "The magistrate is 
not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, nor to compel men to this or that 
form of religion, because Christ is the King, and Lawgiver of the Church and Conscience " 
(" Works of John Robinson," vol. iii., p. 277). Who art thou that judgest Another's ser- 
vant ? To his own Master ho standeth or f .Uet'i (Rom. xiv. 4). 



256 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

tread the tranquil street, or strolling, with, chaste buoyancy, 
the odorous grove, the deep-toned bell, the open Sanctuary, 
the subdued yet blithesome hum of Sunday-school, the 
voice of prayer and Scriptural reading, the uplifting ser- 
mon, the melody of hymn and chant — these are the angel 
voices which invite to restful worship. And these the 
Sabbath gives. Looping down, like celestial festoons from 
the throne of God, at regularly recurring intervals along 
the highway of life, each recurring Sabbath invites the 
caravan of humanity to halt for a few hours, that it may 
gaze up, with w^orshipful vision, into the opened heavens. 

"Bright shadows of true Rest! Some shoots of bliss: 

Heaven once a week : 
The next world prepossess'd in this: 

A day to seek 
Eternity in time : the steps by which 
We climb above all ages : lamps that light 
Man through his heap of dark days : and the rich 
And full redemption of the whole week's flight: 
The milky-way chalk'd out with suns : a clew 
That guides through erring hours : and in full story 
A taste of Heaven on earth : tlie pledge and cue 
Of a full feast : and the outcourts of Glory." 

— (Henet Yaughan.) 

Thus Man is the basis of the Sabbath : the Sabbath was 
made for him, not he for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was 
made for him as much as is light, or air, or food. 

(c.)— The Sabbath ^^^ what Man needs, God has ap- 
a Divuie Appoint- pointed. Witness the Fourth Com- 
^^^^^*- mandment. True, this passage, al- 

though a part of the Decalogue, h not to be taken as 
though it settled for all men, and all time, the question of 
the origin, the basis, or the authority, of the Sabbath. 
For although the Decalogue, in its spirit, is for all lands 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 257 

and ages, yet, in its letter, it was evidently for the He- 
brews. The very preamble proves the assertion : " God 
sj)alve all these words, saying : ' I am Jehovah thy God, 
Who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out 
of the house of bondage ' " (Ex. xx. i, 2). Then follow the 
Ten Commandments, based on the unique fact that Jeho- 
vah was the Covenant God of Israel. The Fifth Com- 
mandment is a striking evidence of the Jewish character 
of the Decalogue : " Honor thy father and thy mother : 
that thy days may be long u]3on the land which Jehovah 
thy God giveth thee " (Ex. xx. 12) : i. e., that thou may est 
live long in the Canaan whither thou art going. And 
when we turn to the second account of the Decalogue, as 
recorded in Deuteronomy, we find that the very reason 
assigned for the Fourth Commandment is the gracious 
fact of Israel's Emancipation : " Remember that thou wast 
a servant in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah thy God 
brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a 
stretched-out arm : therefore Jehovah thy God command- 
ed thee to keep the Sabbath-day" (Dcut. v. 12-15). Indeed 
God directs Moses to teach Israel that the Sabbath was 
appointed as a covenant sign between Jehovah and Israel, 
and as such a badge of the Jewish [N'ationality : " Jehovah 
spake to Moses, saying : ^ Speak thou also to the children 
of Israel, saying : " Yerily My Sabbaths ye shall keep ; for 
it is a sign between Me and you thraughout your genera- 
tions : that ye may know that I am Jehovah Who doth 
sanctify you " ' " (Ex. xxxi. 12-17). And, nine hundred years 
afterward, the declaration is echoed by the prophet Eze- 
kiel (Ezck. XX. 12-20). And when we turn to the ]N"ew Tes- 
tament, the Jewish character of the Sinaitic Sabbath be- 
comes still more evident. It is a significant fact that the 
only full twenty-four hours which the Lord of All spent 



258 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

in tlie tomb was the Seventh Day, the Sabbath of the 
Decalogue, the Hebrew Sabbath. Indeed, if we base the 
Sabbath on the Decalogue, I do not see but that we are 
bound to keep Saturday, inflict the Mosaic penalty of death 
for Sabbath-breaking, keep Passover and Day of Atone- 
ment, and turn our churches into sacrificial slaughter-houses. 
Moreover : the Apostolic disregard of the Mosaic Sabbath 
is strikingly significant, especially when we remember that 
by far the larger proportion of the early Christians were 
converts from heathenism, "and therefore needed special 
instruction in the matter of the Sabbath. The Apostle 
Paul was wont to insist on a strict observance of all practi- 
cal duties, often mentioning them in detail ; and yet in all 
his extant Letters there is but one solitary allusion to the 
Sabbath, and even then he classifies it with the ceremonial 
observances which had been abolished : " Let no one judge 
you in eating or in drinking (i. e., call you to account in 
the matter of ceremonial distinctions of clean and unclean 
food), or in respect of a feast-day, or new moon, or Sab- 
bath : which are a shadow of the things to come ; but the 
body — the substance — is of Christ" (Col, ii. 16, 17).' All 
this shows that the Sinaitic Sabbath, or the Sabbath as an 
ordinance in the letter, was Jewish ; and, as such, local and 
temporary. On the other hand, the Sabbath as a necessity, 
or ^N'ature's Sabbath, is Human, and, as such, as universal 
and abiding as Man. /The moment that the Son of Man — 
even the Lawgiver greater than Moses — speaks, saying: 
" The Sabbath was made for Man, and not Man for the 
Sabbath : " we feel that He speaks, not as a Jew to Jews, 
but as the Divine Man to Men, instantly raising the Sab- 

1 Perhaps there is an allusion to the Sabbath in Eom. xiv. 5 : " One man esteemeth one 
day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let each one be fully persuaded in 
his ovrn mind.'" That is to say: it is a question in casuistry, and each one must decide it 
for himself, as in the presence of God. 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 259 

bath from a Jewish ordinance to a human necessity. And 
observe the authority which Christ quotes : it is not Moses, 
but Man ; not Scripture, but N'ature. The Sabbath is in 
the Decalogue ; but IT^is there because it was before in 
Nature, and tlie Jew was a man. Thus [Mature and Script- 
ure are in alHance : the one demanding a Sabbath, and the 
other appointing it. 

But Christ's Doctrine of the Sabbath 
th "th' s bbatli tcaches a second lesson ; it is this : Man 
is greater than the Sabbath. " There- 
fore, so that, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." 
Observe the phrase — " Son of Man." Without staying to 
unfold this phrase with theological accuracy, let it be 
enough that I use it as expressing, in outline, the tnith 
that Jesus Christ was the Representative and Exemplar of 
Humanity — the Archetypal Man. As Divine, or the Son 
of God, of coarse He was Lord of the Sabbath. The 
point is that He is Lord of the Sabbath as human, as the 
Son of Man. " The Sabbath was made for Man : therefore 
the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." In other words : 
the Sabbath is to be used as a means, not as an end. This 
the Rabbis could not understand. They utterly failed to 
gi'asp this majestic word — Man. Man is Man, not because 
he is strong — the elephant is strong; not because he is 
ingenious — the beaver is ingenious ; not because he is af- 
fectionate — the dog is affectionate ; Man is Man because 
he is God's Libreathing, God's Luage, God's Son (Gen. i. 26, 
ii. 1 ; Luke iii. 38). As sucli, Man is God's heir, and Christ's 
joint heir, and so the Lord of all. 

"Thou hast made him a little lower than God, 
And crownest him with glory and honor: 

Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands, 
Thou dost put all things under his feet; 



260 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Sheep and oxen, all of them, 

Yea, and the beasts of the field, 

The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, 

Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." 

— (Psalm viii. 5-8.) 

That is to say : Man, as God's Son and Image and Kep- 
resentative, is the end, and the Sabbath, like every other 
" ordinance," is a means. An immortal being, outliving 
institutions, economies, seons — capable of carrying a heaven 
within him — God's own Image and Son; Man is more 
sacred than ordinances. Jesus Christ did not die for ordi- 
nances : Jesus Christ died for Man. The Sabbath is sa- 
cred, not in itself, but because Man is sacred. Hence the 
Sabbath is his servant — not his master. He is the Lord of 
the Sabbath. And in accordance with this principle Jesus 
Christ Himself ever acted. E. g., do the Pharisees charge 
His disciples with Sabbath-breaking, because, as they were 
passing through the grain-fields on a certain Sabbath, they 
plucked in their hunger some of the ears, rubbing them 
with their hands, and eating? The Lord makes defense 
by a threefold citation from their own Scriptures. First, 
He reminds them of the case of King David : " Have ye 
never read what David did, when he and they who w^ere 
with him were hungry, how he went into the House of 
God, in the days of Abiathar the high-priest, and took and 
ate the shew-bread, which it is not lawful for any one to 
eat, but the priests alone, and also gave it to those who 
were with him ? " (i Sam. xxi., 1-6.) The Lord's argument is 
this : " What though a law of Moses forbids laymen eating 
of the priest's shew-bread ? David and his comrades were 
men, and they were hungry, and Man is greater than ordi- 
nances." Next He reminds them of the case of their own 
priests : " Or have ye not read in the Law that on the Sab- 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 2G1 

bcitJi the priests in tlie temple profane the Sabbath, and are 
blameless ? But I say unto you that a Greater than the 
temple is here ! " And His argument is this : " What 
though the Law f orbidTall manner of work on the Seventh 
Day ? The priests, in carrying on their ministrations, are 
compelled to toil on the Sabbath. Yet they are not to 
blame : for ye need their ministrations, and Man is greater 
than temple and Sabbath." Once more : He reminds them 
of a weighty saying of one of their own Prophets : " But 
if ye had known what this meaneth — ' I desire mercy, and 
not sacrifice ' (Hosca vi. 6) — ye would not have condemned 
the guiltless." And His argument is this : " Hosea him- 
self declares that when Mercy comes into collision with 
ritual, so that the one or the other must yield, God prefers 
the Mercy to the ritual. ]^ow if ye really had understood 
this saying of the Prophet, ye would never have con- 
demned My discij^les for satisfying their hunger on the 
Sabbath. For, as Man is greater than institutions, so Mercy 
is greater than rubric." Then follows the passage setting 
forth Christ's Genesis of the Sabbath : " And He said to 
them : ' The Sabbath for Man was made, and not Man for 
the Sabbath : therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the 
Sabbath ' " (Matt. xii. 1-8). Again : On another Sabbath, as 
He was teaching in one of the synagogues of Galilee, a man 
was present whose right hand w^as withered. And the 
Scribes and Pharisees were watching whether He would 
heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation 
against Him. But He knew their thoughts : and He said 
to the man having the withered hand : " Kise, and stand 
up in the midst ! " And he arose, and stood up. And 
Jesus said to tliem : " I ask you whether it is lawful on the 
Sabbath to do good, or to do evil ? to save life, or to kill ? " 
B-.it they were silent. And He said to them: "Who of 



262 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

you that owneth one slieep, if it fall into a pit on the Sab- 
bath, will not lay hold of it, and to lift it out ? Of how 
much more worth now is a Man than a sheep ? So then it 
is lawful to do well on the Sabbath." And, looking round 
on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their 
hearts. He saith to the man : " Stretch forth thy hand ! " 
And he stretched it forth, and his hand was restored. 
And the Pharisees were filled with madness, and went 
forth, and immediately held a consultation with the He- 
rodians against Him, how they might destroy Him (Matt. xii. 
9-14). Again : On still another Sabbath Jesus was teaching 
in one of the synagogues of the Perea. And, lo, a woman 
was there who had had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years : 
and she was bent together, and wholly unable to lift her- 
self up. And Jesus, seeing her, called to her, and said : 
" Woman, thou art released from thy infirmity." And He 
laid His hands on her, and immediately she stood upright, 
and gave glory to God. But the ruler of the synagogue, 
being filled with indignation because Jesus had wrought a 
cure on the Sabbath-day, said to the multitude : " There 
are six days in which it is proper to work : in these there- 
fore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath-day." 
But the Lord answered him and said : '^ Hypocrites, doth 
not each of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from 
the stall, and lead him away and water him ? And ought 
not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath 
bound, lo, these eighteen years, to be loosed from her bond 
on the Sabbath-day ? " And when He had said these things, 
all His adversaries were ashamed (Luke xUi. lO-iT). Again: 
On a certain Sabbath Jesus was dining with one of the 
chief men of the Pharisees. And, lo, there was a certain 
man present who had the dropsy. And they were watch- 
ing Him. But Jesus knew their thoughts, and, answering, 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 263 

spake to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying : " Is if lawful 
to heal on the Sabbath-day or not ? " But they held their 
peace. And, taking hold of him, He healed him, and sent 
him away. And He^answered them and said : " AVho is 
there of you, who, if his ass or his ox fall into a pit, will 
not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day ? " And 
they could make no answer to this (Luke xiv. 1-6). Once 
more : On a certain occasion, when Jesus was in Jerusalem, 
He found lying by the Pool of Bethesda an impotent man, 
who had had his infirmity thirty-eight years, and He said 
to him : " E,ise, take up thy bed, and walk ! " And straight- 
way the man was cured, and took up his bed and walked. 
But it happened that the day on which this miracle was 
wi'ought was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore were hor- 
ror-struck, and said to the man that had been cured : " It 
is the Sabbath-day ! It is not lawful for thee to carry thy 
bed." Jesus, in self -justification, replied : " My Father 
worketh hitherto — is working even until now, and I work." 
And on this account the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought 
to kill Him, because He did these things on the Sabbath- 
day (John V. 1-18). Months afterward, in referring to this 
cure, He justified Himself on the ground that rubric must 
yield to mercy — ordinances to men : " I have done one 
work, and ye are all wondering. Moses gave to you cir- 
cumcision, and ye on the Sabbath circumcise a man. If a 
man on the Sabbath-day receive circumxcision, that the law 
of Moses may not be broken, are ye angry at Me, because 
I made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath-day ? " 
(John vii. 21-24.) In other words : If the Sabbath must yield 
to man in the case of the mutilating rite of circumcision, 
how much more ought it to yield to man in the case of re- 
storing soundness to his whole body ! In view of these 
instances of Christ's teaching and practice, liow resistless 



264 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the conviction that He believed that Man is greater than 
the Sabbath ! And yet He did not mean to diminish the 
obligation of the Sabbath : He meant only to emancipate 
it from the thrall of Pharisaic sanctimoniousness and super- 
stition. He destroyed not the Sabbath, but brought out 
its real meaning : and so in deepest sense He kept the 
Sabbath. God for evermore avert the day when the Ameri- 
can Sabbath degenerates into the European ! 

From what has been said, we cannot 
3.-ThetrueMeth. f^^-j ^^ infer the true Method of Keep- 
Sabbath ^^^^^° ^ ing the Sabbath : it is to be kept in such 
a way as will unfold Man heavenward 
the most thoroughly, totally, symmetrically. Thus : Being 
made for Man, the Sabbath must be used religiously : for 
the capacity for religion is Man's chief definition. The 
Sabbath must be kept in homage of God, in the study of 
His Word and Character and Will, in the spirit of worship, 
private and public. But full unfolding of Man's spiritual na- 
ture is possible only in the sphere of Edification, or Society- 
building. The Sabbath summons man to conjugate life in 
a new mood and tense ; but still in the active voice. And 
here the Son of Man is our Teacher and blessed Model. 
How many of His healings and works of mercy were 
wrought on the Sabbath-day ! And what is man's ofiice 
in this fallen, sorrowful world, but a ministry of healing ? 
And healing, or edification, is the highest form of wor- 
ship. ]N^othing can take the place of it. True, it is right 
and necessary that we engage in forms and acts of devotion, 
going to the House of God with the voice of joy and praise, 
with the multitude keeping holyday (Ps. xlii. 4). Neverthe- 
less, this is the minor part of worship. Is not this the fast, 
the service, the liturgy, which God hath chosen — to loosen 
the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 2G5 

tlie oppressed go free, to break every yoke, to deal tliy 
bread to the hungry, to bring the poor that are cast out to 
thy house, to clothe the, naked ? (is. iviii. 6, 1.) 'No one truly 
keeps the Sabbath, unless he keeps it as Christ kept it : 
and He went about doing good, and healing all that were 
oppressed by the devil (Acts x. 38). Again : Man's spirit, at 
least while in this Avorld, lives in a body. And here comes 
up a question in casuistry, intensely practical, which each 
one must decide for himself. How far is it right for me 
to do on the Sabbath things which are confessedly secular ? 
Let me illustrate : Here is a poor, hard-working laborer, 
e. g., a shoemaker, or tailor, or operative. Six days in the 
week he bends over his last, or sits cross-legged, or manipu- 
lates wearily amid the din and whirl of an ill-ventilatejil 
factory. When night comes, he is too jaded to enjoy even 
his family, and early seeks the unconsciousness of slumber. 
And so the tiresome days creep on till the Sabbath comes 
— the day appointed in God's providential working as l^a- 
ture's compensation reservoir. In the morning our friend 
goes to the sanctuary, and is spiritually refreshed by its 
ministrations. But God has given him a body as well as 
a spirit — an aesthetic nature as well as a moral. Afternoon 
comes — a bright summer's afternoon — and our weary la- 
borer says to liimself : " Oh that I could go out to the park 
to-day, and look on my Father's glorious trees and beauti- 
ful flowers, and breathe His fresh, pure, sweet air ! I am 
sure it would make me stronger and more worshi]iful ! 
Will it be wrong for me to go ? " Suppose the Lord Jesus 
Christ Himself were again on earth ; how do you think 
He would answer the question? I will tell you liow I 
think He would answer it. He would say : " The Sabbath 
was made for Man, and not Man for the Sabbath. If you 
think it will do you good to take a stroll in the park, if it 
12 



266 STUDIES IN THE CEEATIVE WEEK. 

will make you more reverent in spirit, if it will help you 
to engage in your business the coming week more cheerily 
and effectively, and so honor Me more truly, then go ! I 
am not confined to temples made with hands. I made the 
trees as well as the sanctuary, the flowers as well as the 
pews, Nature as well as Scripture. That is the best kej)t 
Sabbath which is kept in such a way as to unfold you 
heavenward most totally — ^you who are spirit and soul and 
body (1 Thess. V. 23). This is the meaning and purpose of the 
Sabbath. It was made for you, not you for it. If, then, 
you think it will do you most good in every way to go to 
the park, go ; and the blessing of the Lord of the Sabbath 
go with you ! " — But, observe, because this man may have 
the right to go to the park, it does not follow that every 
one has the same right. As a matter of fact, circumstances 
do alter cases. He who forbade Mary to touch Him al- 
lowed Thomas (John XX. 11, 27). It is easy enough for a ruler 
of the synagogue, or a rich man of leisure, to say : " There 
are six days in which it is proper to work ; on these, there- 
fore, go and be cured ; but not on the Sabbath-day " (Luke 
xiii. 14). But, as a matter of fact, this poor friend of ours, 
by the very terms of our supposition, cannot, without what 
to him is a large expense, avail himself of the health and 
beauty and gladness of God's own Nature on the week 
days. What, then, may be right for the poor man may be 
wrong for the rich man. We must study circumstances. 
God treats us as men, not as babes. We must exercise our 
own best judgment. Not all things which are lawful are 
expedient (i Cor. vi. 12). The law of edification holds here 
in supreme force. While lenient to others, refusing to 
judge our brother in matters of casuistry, we must be 
severe with ourselves. Or if we judge at all, let our judg- 
ment rather be this, not to put a stumbling-block, or an 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 267 

occaGion to fall, in a brother's way (Rom. xiv. 13). Each per- 
son must decide for himself which is the best way of keep- 
ing the Sabbath, i. e., the best way of unfolding to the 
fullest all his own powei-s heavenward ; for this is the very 
purpose for which the Sabbath has been made. 

Such, it seems to me, is Christ's Doctrine of the Sab- 
bath. And if any one has the right to define the Sabbath 
it is He, even that Son of Man Who is the Lord of the Sab- 
bath. 

But I hear some objections to this 
view of the Sabbath. It is but fair to 
consider them. 

And, first : " This view of the Sab- 
^'';^~"f/!'r ^""^ ^ath allows too much liberty." My an- 
swer is twofold. First : there are two 
ways of treating men, either as infants, incapable of guid- 
ing themselves, or as men, capable of reasoning, and so of 
self -guidance. The first was the Mosaic way, the Church 
being a minor, under tutors and governors, and the law 
being a letter, graven on tablets of stone : the second is 
the Christly vv-ay, the Church having come into the posses- 
sion of the privileges of majority, and the law being a 
spirit, graven on tablets of heart (Gal. iv. 1-7; 2 Cor. iii. 3). 
The first is the Romanist way, or the method of dictation, 
and so of slaveship : the second is the Protestant way, or 
the method of reasoning, and so of self -decision. 'Now it 
so happens, in the order of God's Inspiration, that the 
New Testament expressly mentions the Sabbath as being 
precisely one of those things concerning which each man 
is to be the law to himself : " Let no one judge you in 
eating or drinking, or in the matter of a holyday, or a 
new moon, or a Sabbath " (Col. ii. 16).' Yes, Jesus Christ 

1 Compare carefully, in this connection, St. Paul's discussion of the Law of Liberty in 
matters of casuistry, as set forth in Kom. xiv., xv. 1-7 ; 1 Cor. vi. 12-20, viii. Were these 



268 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

does call His Cliiircli unto " liberty." Eut, secondly : Lib- 
erty is itself responsibility. The slave cannot understand, 
in any thorongli, just sense, the meaning of the august word 
Responsibility; none but the freeman can understand ic. 
And just because the 'New Testament gives me liberty in 
the matter of the Sabbath, I am bound to be more con- 
scientious about it than was the Old Testament Jew. Ah, 
friends, it is easier to be a Hebrew than a Christian. 

. ._,, „ But I hear a second objection : 

" Your view of the Sabbath is danger- 
ous : men will pervert it, perhaps to their own perdition." 
Of course they may. It is one of the prerogatives of 
Truth to be perverted. Thus the Pharisees, as we have 
seen, perverted the teachings of the Lord of Truth in this 
very matter of the Sabbath, persecuting Him because, as 
they charged. He was a Sabbath-breaker ; whereas no one, 
before or since, has ever fulfilled the Ideal of the Sabbath 
so perfectly as this same " Sabbath-breaker." In fact, all 
truth is '' dangerous ;" and the higher the truth, the more 
dangerous. "What truth so blessed as the truth of Free 
Grace ? And yet what truth so perilous, and so often sui- 
cidally abused ? Meanwhile, Christ's Truth is ever able to 
take care of itself ; it is only falsehood that needs buttress- 
ing. Uzzahs, undertaking to steady Jehovah's Ark, as 
though it were in real danger, ruin themselves (2 Sam. vi. 6-8). 
Do not undertake then to be wiser or more prudent than 
the Lord of Truth Himself. Enough for the servant that 
he be as his lord (Matt. x. 25). 

The consideration of this grave topic, 
s bb~t]^V"^t ""^ ^^ although it has been so meagrely dis- 
cussed, is in itself opportune. The 
Sabbath question is one of the questions of the age, more 

inspired precepts more scrupulously observed, wliat a thinnino: out there would be of tbo 
self-appointed Censors of the brethren ! 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 269 

talked about in the field and workshop and factory than 
we ministers dream. It is a question which we ministers 
must look squarely in the face. The foe is keen and 
powerful. Before such an enemy the question is not to 
be settled by ipse dixits^ or citations of ancestral creeds. 
If we would win the fight, we must wage battle on solid, 
abiding ground. How then shall we meet the question ? 
I know no other way than that which the Lord of the 
Sabbath has Himself indicated. The Sabbath was made 
for Man, not Man for the Sabbath. The basis of the Sab- 
bath is not God's outward, graven letter, but Man's in- 
ward, personal need. Meet the foe on the ground of the 
Mosaic ordinance, and you are bound to lose : for Mosaism 
was local and transient. Meet the foe on the ground of 
Man's need, and you are bound to win : for you have Na- 
ture, and Nature's Lord, on your side. 

Before closing^ our study, it will be 
III.— The Change . P ^ / i • xi 

, ^ proper to say a lew words touching the 

g^j^^.^ change oi the babbatli from the Sev- 

enth Day to the First — from Saturday 
to Sunday. How w^as this tremendous change brought 
about ? Tremendous, I say, for, considering the circum- 
stances of the case, the change was nothing less than a 
moral resolution. When we remember that the Seventh 
Day had received the august sanction of the Creator's own 
example from the very beginning : that the commandment 
to keep the Seventh Day holy, proclaimed as it had been 
amid the trumpet clangs and lightnings and quakings and 
Divinely-ordained barricades of Sinai, was distinctly and 
emphatically based on the Creator's own example in Eden 
(Ex. XX. 8-11): that the keeping the Seventh Day had been 
distinctly set forth as one of the badges of the Jewish 
Nationality (Ex. xxxi. 16, 17) : that the keeping the Seventh 



270 STUDIES m THE CKEATIVE WEEK. 

Day had been promised the most glorious of rewards (Is. 
iviii. 13, 14), and that the breaking the Seventh Day had been 
threatened the direst of penalties — even death itself (Ex. 
xxxi. 14, 15) : that for more than fifteen hundred years the 
Hebrew people, with here and there an exception in times 
of immense apostasy, had scrupulously observed the Sev- 
enth Day as the Divinely-appointed Sabbath : that this ob- 
servance had never been so scrupulous as in the days of 
Jesus Christ Himself — it being, in fact, the very point at 
which, as we have seen, He came into oftenest and sharp- 
est collision with His adversaries, and Avhich was one of 
the precipitating causes of His premature death : that the 
saintly women, who had bravely stood by the Cross, and 
were yearning to minister to their dead Lord the last sepul- 
chral honors, yet scrupulously refrained from doing so be- 
cause the Seventh Day was over the land (Luke xxiii. 55, 56 ; 
xxiv. 1) : that the Apostles were Jews, and as such shared 
in the intense conservatism and traditionalism of their 
race : that there is no record of any Divine command to 
substitute the First Day for the Seventh : when we re- 
member all this, we are forced to admit that the change 
from Saturday to Sunday was indeed nothing less than a 
tremendous revolution. But revolutions do not take place 
without causes. How then will you account for this stu- 
pendous revolution ? It is a fair question for the philo- 
sophical historian to ask. Here is a venerable, sacred in- 
stitution — hallowed by the Creator's own Example in Eden, 
solemnly enjoined amid the thunders of Sinai, distinctly 
set apart as one of the chief signs that Israel was God's 
chosen, covenanted people, majestically buttressed by lofti- 
est promises in case of observance, and by direst threats in 
case of non-observance, freighted with the solemn weight 
of fifteen centuries of sacred associations and scrupulous 



GENESIS OF THE SABBATH. 271 

observance — suddenly falling into disuse, and presently 
supplanted by another Day, wliich to tliis year of Grace 
has held its own amid the throes of eighteen centuries. 
How then will you account for this stupendous revolution ? 
It is, I repeat, a fair question for the philosophical histo- 
rian to ask. And the philosophical historian knows the 
answer. Jesus the ISTazarene had been crucified. All 
through the Seventh Day or Hebrew Sabbath He had 
lain in Joseph's tomb. In that tomb, amid solitude and 
darkness and grave-clothes. He had grappled in mortal 
duel with the King of Death, and had thrown him, 
and shivered his Sceptre. At the close of that awful 
Sabbath, as it began to daw^n toward the First Day of 
the Week (Matt, xxviii. 1), He had risen triumphant from 
the dead. And by and in the very fact of that tri- 
umphant Kising, He had henceforth and for evermore 
emblazoned the First Day of the Week as His own royal, 
supernal Day, even Time's first, true Sabbath. Ah, the 
Primitive Church needed no command. Conscious of 
their need of a Sabbath, and aware that the Hebrew Sev- 
enth Day, like the other institutions of the Sinaitic Econ- 
omy, had shared Chiist's Sepulchre, but not Christ's Resur- 
rection, it was enough for them, and it is enough for us, 
that He Wlio Himself was the Lord of the Sabbath, and 
greater than Sinai and Eden, had risen on Sunday. By 
as much then as Spirit is nobler than matter : by as much 
as Grace is grander than law : by as much as the Eden to 
come is sublimer than the Eden that has been : by as much 
as a finished Redemption is auguster than a finished Crea- 
tion : by so much does the day which commemorates the 
achievement of a Redeemer transcend the day wdiich com- 
memorates the achievement of a Creator. ]^ot that the 
earlier achievement was not glorious : but it lias ceased to be 



272 STUDIES IN THE CEEATIYE WEEK. 

glorious by reason of tlie Glorj which excelleth (2 Cor. iii. 10). 
Ay, Saturday was bnt the Sabbath of Creation, Sunday is 
the Sabbath of Kedemption : Saturday the Sabbath of the 
first Adam, Sunday the Sabbath of the Second Adam : Satur- 
day the Sabbath of E'ature, Sunday the Sabbath of Grace : 
Saturday the Sabbath of the letter, Sunday the Sabbath of 
the Spirit: Saturday the Sabbath of perdition by Sinai, 
Sunday the Sabbath of Salvation by Calvary: Saturday 
the Sabbath of a rejected, executed, entombed Jesus, Sun- 
day the Sabbath of a Risen, Exalted, Triumphant Christ : 
Saturday Creator's day, Sunday Redeemer's Day. 

" Hail, Thou Lord of earth and heaven ! 
Praise to Thee by both be given ! 
Thee we greet triumphant now ! 
Hail the Eesurrection, Thou! " — (Wesley.) 

Finally : Jesus Christ Himself is our 

IY._jesLis Christ g^i^i^^th, alike its origin, its meaning, 

Himself Our Sab- ^ .. -, -r j- ^ ^^ n ^ i? 

. I and its end. in tact, the iinal cause 01 

the Sabbath is to Sabbatize each day and 
make all life sacramental. And Jesus Christ being our true 
Sabbath, Jesus Christ is also our true Eest— even the spir- 
it's everlasting Eden. May it be for us all evermore to be 
in the Lord's own Spirit on the Lord's own Day (Kev. i. 10)! 
So shall we keep His Sabbath as a Eesurrection festival. 
Why seek ye the Living One among the dead ? He is not 
here : He is Risen, as He said (Luke xxiv. 5, 6). Ours is not 
the Church of the Sepulchre : ours is the Church of the 
Resurrection. May it be for us all evermore to feel the 
power of His Resurrection (Phil. iii. 10), and so to enter the 
Sabbath's Rest which remaineth for His people (Eeb. iv. 10) ! 
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. 



LECTUKE XIY. 



PALINGENESIS. 



"The day of the Lord -will come as a thief in the night; in 
the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works 
that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing, then, that all these things 
shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all 
holy conversation and godliness ; looking for and hasting unto the 
coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall 
be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Never- 
theless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." — 2 Petee iii. 10-13. 

We have now completed our study of 

I, The Retro- . 

* the Story of the Creative Week. Stand- 

ing at the goal, it is natural for ns to look 
backward, and review the field we have traversed. Even the 
Creator Himself, at the close of the Sixth Day, reviewed 
His own work, and took delight in it ; " God saw every- 
thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good " 
(Gen. i. 31). May the Spirit of God help us as we also vent- 
ure to join in the sacred Review I Accordingly, ascending 
once more the Mount of Panoramic Vision, let us gaze 
with the inspired Seer on the unfolding sections of the 
Creative Week. 

Go we back, then, to an indefinite 

1. — The Infinite • j • .-u -d\ •/ i. • ^i 

jjj^j^j^ period m the Jrast : it may be six thou- 

sand years : it may be six hundred thou- 
sand : it may be six million million : it matters not : enough 



274 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

that it is sublimely called " The Beginning." The curtain 
uplifts. It is the First Scene. Alas, it is no scene at all ! 
Nothing but universal, absolute, infinite Space. 

"Illimitable, .... without bound, 
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 
And time, and place, are lost." — (" Paeadiss Lost.") 

Again the curtain rises. It is the 
Universe!^ meigmg gg^j^^j^^j g^^g^e. " In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth." It 
is the vision of the emerging elements of the Universe. 
In the Beginning, when I^othing was, God caused to come 
into existence the heavens and the earth. A miracle, of 
course, it was. And, being a miracle, of course, mj^ intel- 
lect cannot understand it. But my faith can. By faith we 
understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of 
God, so that things which are seen were not made of things 
which appeared (Heb. xi. 3). Ay, this word — " Faith " — is 
the motto inscribed on the very threshold of the Temple 
of Truth. The very first question in philosophy is this : 
" What is the Origin of Things ? " The very first sentence 
of the Bible is an answer to that question : an answer as 
simple as majestic — God. Thus the very first summons to 
the student of l^ature is a summons to an act of faith. 

Again the curtain rises. It is the 

without form, and void, and darkness 
was upon the face of the deep." I know not at what stage 
in the course of Time this chaotic state existed : it may 
have been the instant after creation : it may not have been 
till indefinite ages had glided away. What I know is this : 
There has been a time when the earth was waste and form- 
less, and darkness was over the face of the abyss. 



PALINGENESIS. 275 

Again the cnrta-in rises. It is the 

4.-The Emerging ^^^^,^j^ g^^^^^ ,, ^^^ ^j^^ j,^^^^^^ ^^ 
Urclcr. 

God moved over the face of the fluids." 
I know not how mnchr this means. What I know is this : 
The wind sometimes does an assuaging ministry — e. g., wlien 
earth was endeluged, God caused a wind to pass over it, 
and the waters subsided (Gen. viii. i). In some sense and way 
inscrutable to us, the Spirit of God — the Divine Wind — 
hovered over ancient chaos, marshahng, coordinating, or- 
ganizing its lieterogeneous elements, breathing over the 
shapeless, desolate, Cimmerian immensity His own energy 
of movement, and array, and unity, and peace, and beauty. 
Again the curtain rises. It is the 

5^The Emerging ^.^^^^ g^^^^^ ,, ^^^^ ^^^ ^^.^ . , -j^^^ 

Light be ! ' and Light was." I know not 
whence this Light came, or how, or what its nature. It 
could not have been the light of the sun : for that did not 
make its appearance till the Fourth Day. This light of 
the First Day was, quite probably, the light of atomic 
movement — the universal ether, as it were, quivering be- 
neath the flutter of the S23irit's wings and surging in bil- 
lows of light before the zephyr of His own breathing. All 
I know is this : " God said : ' Let Light be ! ' and Light 
was. And there was evening, and there was morning, 
Day One." 

Again the curtain rises. It is the 

6.-The Emerging g.^^^^ g^^^^^ ,, ^^^^ ^^^ said :^ Let 

there be an expanse m the midst of the 
fluids, and let it divide fluids from fluids.' " I know not 
how much this term " expanse " means. It may mean the 
atmospheric heavens, absorbing the vapors rising from 
earth's surface, and so separating the waters into masses — 
the one mass above, tlie other mass below. Or it may mean 



276 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the ethereal heavens, gliding through and arching in the 
then fluid universe, thus separating it into masses sidereal 
and terrestrial. All I know is this : " God said : ' Let there 
be an expanse in the midst of the fluids, and let it divide 
fluids from fluids.' And God called the expanse ' Heav- 
ens.' And there was evening, and there was morning. Day 
Two." 

Again the curtain rises. It is the 

T.-The Emerging g^^^^^j^ ^^^^^^ u ^^^ Q^^ ^^^^ . c j^^^ 
Lands. 

the. waters under the heavens gather 
tliemselves to one place, and let the dry land appear.' And 
it was so. And God called the dry ground Earth, and the 
gathering together of the waters He called Seas." I know 
not how this was done : whether suddenly and violently, 
or slowly and gently : whether directly, by the Creative 
Dictum, or indirectly, as, e. g., through fiery or chemical 
agencies. I know not the How : I only know^ the What. 
And a sublime spectacle it is : this resurrection of the ter- 
restrial forms Out of Ocean's baptismal sepulchre : this 
emergence of island, and continent, and mountain : this 
heaving into sight of Britain and Madagascar and Cuba 
and Greenland, of Asia and Africa and Australia and 
America, of Alps and Himalayas and Andes and Sierra 
[Revada — more thrilling still, of Ararat and Sinai and 
Pisgah and Carmel and Zion and Olivet. 

Again the curtain rises. It is the 
rkn^.'^^'' ^'^'"^'''^ Eighth Scene. "And God said: ^ Let 
the earth bring forth grass, the herb 
yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its 
kind, whose seed is in itself.' " And, lo, it is so. On all 
sides spring up as if by magic the floating algse, the cir- 
cling lichens, the luxuriant mosses, the branching ferns, the 
waving grasses, the graceful palms, the kingly oaks, the 



PALINGENESIS. 277 

iris-hiied flowers. And a blessed vision it is : this grateful 
exchange of dull uniformity and brown nakedness for 
vegetable colors, for carpets of emerald, and tapestries of 
white, and azure, anii--erimson, and orange, and purple. 
Even the God of Beautj Himself feels that it is good. 
And there is evening, and there is morning. Day Three. 

Again the curtain rises. It is the 

9.-The Emcrsing ^.^^^^ g^^^^^ ,, ^^^^ ^^^ ^^.^ . , -^^^ 
Luminaries. i t i • i 

there be lights m the expanse of the 
heavens, to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day 
and over the night, and to divide the light from the dark- 
ness : ' and it was so." ISTot that God for the first time 
creates sun, moon, and stars. Our Chronicler does not as- 
sert this. What he asserts is this : God now, for the firgt 
time, causes sun, and moon, and stars to become visible, or 
light-bearers. How this was brought about I know not. 
It may have been by giving transparence to the hitherto 
thick, turbid atmosphere, and so letting through it the light 
of sun, moon, and stars. Or it may have been by endowing 
the heavenly bodies with power to excite ethereal undula- 
tions : thus massing the diffused light of the First Day into 
distinct, definite, fixed sources of liglit. All I know is this : 
" God said : ' Let there be lights in the expanse, to give 
light on the earth.' " And, lo, it is so. And a wonderful 
vision it is. There is still light upon the newly-verdured 
mountain and mead. But it is a strange, weird light, it may 
be like that of the zodiacal gleam, or the iris-hued, lambent 
shimmer of the ]^orthern Aurora. Suddenly the golden- 
ing gateways of the East open, and, lo ! a dazzling Orb, 
henceforth the Lord of Day, strides forth from liis cloud- 
pavilion as a bridegroom from his chamber, and rejoices 
to run his course as a giant his race (Psalm xix. 4-5) : upward 
and upward he royally mounts : downward and downward 



278 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

lie royally bows : as lie nears the goal of his resplendent 
march, lo ! the blushing portals of the West open to re- 
ceive him : and, lo ! again, his gentle consort, " pale em- 
press of the night," sweeps forth in silver sheen, while 
around her planet and comet, Arcturus and Mazzaroth, 
Orion and Pleiades, hold glittering com^t. And there is 
evening, and there is morning, Day Four. 

10 —The Emer- Again the curtain rises. It is the 
ging Animals. Tenth Scene. "And God said: 'Let 

the waters swarm with swarms of living 
beings, and let birds fly above the earth along the expanse 
of the heavens, and let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after its kind.' " And, lo, it is so. Sea, air, land, 
is. instinct with moving life. The polyp secretes his coral, 
the jelly-fish spreads his filaments, the sea-urchin juts out 
his spines, the oyster exudes his shell, the nautilus spreads 
his sail, the caterpillar winds his cocoon, the spider weaves 
his web, the salmon darts through the sea, the lizard glides 
among the rocks, the eagle soars the sky, the lion roams 
the jungle, and all Animate Creation awaits its lord. For 
now we have reached the Fane to which all the Past with 
ever-increasing distinctness has been pointing. 

Asrain the curtain rises. It is the 

11. — The Emcr- ^ 

ging Man. Eleventh Scene. " And God said : ' Let 

Us make Man in Our image, after Our 
likeness : and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and 
over the bird of the heavens, and over the cattle of the 
lands, and over all the earth.' " And, lo, a Form like to 
that of the Son of God stoops down, and, taking in His 
hand some of the dust of the soil. He moulds it into a 
figure like to His own Divine Self, and breathes into the 
nostrils Flis own life-breath : and, lo, the dust-figure be- 
comes not only a living soul, like the animals around him, 



PALINGENESIS. 279 

but also a Man, becoming, in very virtue of having been 
Divinely inbreathed, the Creator's Inspiration and Image 
and Son, and so the Yiceroy of Earth. 

„ Affain the curtain rises. It is the 

12. — The Emcr- ^ 

gin'' Eden. Twelfth Scene. And, lo, on the East 

of our Mount of Vision, in the fair 
country of the Euphrates, emerges a Garden of unspeak- 
able loveliness. There, amid a park in which grows 
every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, 
and in the shadow of two wondrous Trees — the permitted 
Tree of Life and the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of 
Good and Evdl — the Creator installs the Man He has in- 
breathed, and thereby made His Son and Image and Vice- 
roy, to till the Garden and to keep it. 

^, T^ Afirain the curtain rises. It is the 

13. — The Emer- ^ 

Thirteenth Scene. " And God said : 
' It is not good that the Man should be 
alone: I will make a helper, suited to him.'" According- 
ly, He summons the various forms of animal life, that the 
Man may catch a glimpse of what Society means. And so 
every beast of the field and every bird of the air come 
trooping to the Man : and he gives to each his name. But 
amid all these varieties of moving, sentient creatures, he 
finds no true companion. Wearied with his Avork of nam- 
ing the animal creation, and disquieted by the sense of de- 
fect, he lies down on the rich, odorous sward, it may be in 
shadow of the Tree of Life, and falls into a profound 
slumber. And now is the golden hour for Divine instruc- 
tion. Wrapped in his deep sleep, Eden's dreamer beholds 
his Maker taking from himself one of his own ribs, form- 
ing it into a Woman, and presenting her to himself, to be 
to him henceforth that blessed mate for whom he has un- 
consciously sighed. Nor is; it altogether a dream. For on 



280 STUDIES m THE CREATIVE WEEK. 



awaking, lie still beliolds standing bj liim the fair vision. 
Recognizing her as liis Second Self, lie joyonslj exclaims : 
" This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh ! 
This shall be called Islia, "Woman, because from Ish, Man, 
was she taken." And hand-in-hand they roam raimentless, 
and are not ashamed. And there was evening and there 
was morning. Day Six. And so were finished the heavens 
and the earth, and all their host. And God sav/ all that 
He had made ; and, behold, it was very good. 

^, T. Once more the curtain rises. It is 

14. — The Emer- 
ging Sabbath. the Fourteenth Scene. "And on the 

Seventh Day God ended His work 
which He had made : and He rested on the Seventh Day 
from all His work which He had made : and God blessed 
the Seventh Day, and sanctified it : because on it He rest- 
ed from all His work which God created in making it." It 
is the vision of the Sabbath. And so falls the curtain on the 
final scene of the Divine Drama of the Creative Week. 

And with this venerable Creation 
The Creation Ar- ^pd^^iye the latest scicncc substantially 

chives and the Ilea- t^ ,t , i 

^, ^ . agrees. Even the most pronounced 

then Cosmogonies. o ^ ^ r ^ 

skeptic will admit that there is more 
solid scientific truth in these few verses than in all the 
tomes of pagan literature. How measurelessly superior 
is the Mosaic cosmogony to the theories of the universe 
as held by the most intellectual nations of antiquity : the 
Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Per- 
sians, the Indians, the Greeks, the Romans! The Yedas 
of Hindostan, we are commendingly told, are marvels of 
philosophy. According to the Brahminic cosmogony, the 
universe came into existence in the state of water, and then 
developed into a stupendous, dazzling egg, in which the 
god of the Hindoos created himself, and abode 4,320,000,000 



PALINGENESIS. 281 

years, and then split the egg in two, and out of the halves 
made heaven and earth. And now I have a question to 
ask : IIow happens it that Moses has given ns an incom- 
parably superior cosmogony ? Trained in the School of the 
JN^ile, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts vii. 22), 
liow happens it that he did not reproduce their theory of 
the universe? Suppose, as some would have us believe, 
that the " Mosaic Record " is of Assyrian or Persian ori- 
gin : how haj^pens it tliat its cosmogony is not Assyrian 
or Persian ? How happens it that it is so accordant with 
the latest science ? AVhere did tlie writer of the first two 
chapters of Genesis — chapters confessedly among the very 
oldest specimens of human literature — acquire all this mar- 
velous knowledge, a knowledge which, we are told, can 
be gained only by elaborate processes of investigation, and 
aids of laboratory and microscope ? How happens it that, 
without any of the helps of modern science, he anticij^ated 
by millenniums the conceptions of such master minds as 
Laplace and Cuvier, Faraday and Dana? Is there any 
more philosophic answer than this : he ^vas Divinely in- 
spired ? To that Divine Inspirer be all thanksgiving and 
glory ! Amen. 

TT rr, T, But, althou2:li we have reached the 

II. — The Pros- ' t • i r^ • 

pQ(.t goal of our studies m the Creative 

Week, we cannot help looking forward 
as well as backward. A thrilling problem still confronts 
us. "What is to be the future of these material heavens 
and earth ? Are they to exist in their present state for- 
ever ? Are they to be annihilated ? Are they to be rc- 
constmcted ? Thank God, we are not left here to specu- 
lation. Listen to an authority wdiich many of us accept 
as ultimate : " The Day of the Lord will come as a thief 
in the niglit: in the which the heavens will pass awr.y 



282 STUDIES IN THE CHEATIYE WEEK. 

wiili a great noise, and tlie elements will be scorched up 
and dissolved, the earth also and the works that are 
therein will be burned up. Seeing then that all these 
things are to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought 
ye to be in all holy behavior and godliness, looking for 
and hastening the coming of the Day of God : by reason 
of which the heavens, being on iire, will be dissolved, and 
the elements will be melted with fervent heat ? But we, 
according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth Eighteousness. Wherefore, be- 
loved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that, 
being without spot and blameless, ye may be found by Him 
in peace " (2 Peter iii. 10-13). It is the Palingenesis, or Apoca- 
lypse of the coming Ro-creation, even as the Story we have 
been studying is the Genesis, or Apocalypse of the past 
Creation. 

In taking our outlook then, survey — 
1 — Th c min"- First I The Coming Dissolution : 
Dissolution. ° " The Day of the Lord w^ill come as a 

thief in the night : in the which the 
heavens, being on fire, w^ill pass away with a crashing roar, 
and the elements will be scorched up and melted and dis- 
solved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works 
therein will be burned up." 

(a.)-ScicntificCon- ^^* ^ ^^^^" ^^ objection: " Such a 
firmation. Catastrophe is not in the least degree 

probable : the uniformity of ^Nature, or 
stability of Natural Law, is altogether against it." The 
Apostle Peter has anticipated your objection, and answered 
it. Listen to his words in this very chapter from which 
our passage is taken : " There will come in the last days 
scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying: ^ Where 
is the promise of His coming ? For since the fathers fell 



PALINGENESIS. 283 

asleep all tilings have continued as tliey were from the be- 
ginning of the Creation.' For this they willingly are ig- 
norant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were from 
of old, and the earth formed out of water and by means of 
water ; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed 
with water, j)erished : but the heavens and the earth which 
are now, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved un- 
to fire against the Day of Judgment and destruction of 
ungodly men " (2 Peter iii. 3-7). That is to say : as the close 
of the present seon approaches there will arise godless 
unbelievers, who will sneer at the possibility of the de- 
sti-uction of the world, or the Return of the Lord, scoffing- 
ly saying: "Where now is His promised coming? For 
since the fathers fell asleep all things have continued as 
they were from the beginning of the Creation." But how 
groundless the assumption! As a matter of history, all 
things have not continued as they were from the beginning 
of the Creation. As a matter of fact, ^N^ature has not al- 
ways been uniform. There has been at least one memo- 
rable exception to her uniformity : it was the tremendous 
Catastro]5he of the Deluge. Moreover: Geologists teach 
that some of the great transition epochs of terrene history, 
such as the sudden oscillations of ocean level, the uplifting 
and plunging of portions of the earth-crust, the unconform- 
able, j)licated, and metamorphic rocks, the glacial period 
just prior to the advent of Man, were instances of catas- 
trophe, or break in the uniformity of Nature. In fact, it 
is the very stability of natural law which prepares the way 
for catastrophes ; it is the very Principle of Continuity 
which necessitates breaks. And, what is especially signifi- 
cant as beanng on our passage, the physicists teach tliat 
the globe itself was once in a state of igneous fusion. 
What has happened once can happen again. In fact, it is 



^8i STUDIES LN" THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

the teaching of those who are competent to instruct us in 
such matters that the material universe carries within itself 
the elements of its own destruction. Let me quote a single 
sample, and this from the latest authority. Professor Kew- 
comb, of the ]^aval Observatory, in a work just issued, says : 
" All modern science seems to point to the finite duration 
of our system in its present form, and to carry us back to 
the time w^lien neither sun nor planet existed, save as a 
mass of glowing gas. How far back that w^as, it cannot 
tell us with certainty ; it can only say that the period is 
counted by millions of years, but probably not by hun- 
dreds of millions. It also points forward to the time when 
the sun and stars shall fade away, and I^^ature shall be en- 
shrouded in darkness and death, unless some power nov/ 
unseen shall uphold or restore her" ('Topuiar Astronomy," pp. 
489, 490). Thus here, as elsewhere — as we so often have had 
occasion to note in this Series — the Bible, though not a 
scientific book, is ever in advance of Science. It is one of 
the unconscious, and therefore teUing, tributes of Science 
to the Bible that the truth which is implied in Scripture 
Science declares is explicit in Nature. 

,, , . ^ , ^ And what an awful catastrophe? that 

(o.) — Awfulness of .n i i -itti 

the Catastrophe. coming dissolution will be ! What pen 
can portray that dreadful scene when, 

" Like the baseless fabric of tliis vision, 
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. 
Leave not a rack behind " ? — (" Tempest," iv. 1.) 

But let me not darken counsel by words without knowl- 
edge, even though the words be those of the mighty Dra- 



PALINGENESIS. 285 

matist liimself. Enougli that I simply recall to you tlie 
Scriptural hints, thus : The sudden emancipation of the im- 
prisoned, latent heat ; the detonating explosion ; the cin- 
dered, ashen globe ; tlie^risping, dissolving heavens ; the 
fused elements. And the catastrophe will be as sudden as 
awful. The possibility of the suddenness of the explosion 
is conceivable when we remember that oxygen, which is 
vastly the most abundant of the elements — constituting 
one-fifth of the atmosphere, one-half of the rocks, eight- 
ninths of the waters, and nearly if not quite one-half of 
the total weight of known matter — is also the grand sup- 
porter of combustion. Oxygen, the great world-builder, 
is ever ready to become the great world-destroyer. For it 
only needs that the Creator should change in the case of 
oxygen, and this in the slightest degree imaginable, the law 
of definite proportionals : and the universe may instantly 
explode. As the night-burglar gives no hint of his com- 
ing, so will be the coming of the great Day of God. When 
men are saying : " Peace and safety ! " then sudden de- 
struction will swoop down on them, and they will not 
escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the 
Day should overtake you as a thief (i Thess. v. 1-5). Ye are 
children of Light, and as such like unto men who wait for 
their lord, when he shall return from the wedding. Blessed 
are those servants whom their Lord, when He cometh, shall 
find watching. Yerily, I say unto you, that He will gird 
Himself, and make them to sit down at meat, and will 
come forth and servo them (Luke xii. 36, 37). 

And so we pass to ponder, secondly, 
T> ' ~x ^°.- "^^^'^ the Comino^ Reconstruction : " But new 

Koconstruction. *=• 

heavens and new earth, according to 
His promise, do we look for, wherein Eighteousness 
dwelleth." 



286 STUDIES m THE CEEATIVE WEEK. 

ISTew lieavens and 'New earth do we 
(«•)— ^e ew iQ^i^f^y^ These words, I have no man- 
Heavens and Earth. /. T -, 11 T 11 

ner of doubt, are -to be taken nterally. 
For we must be consistent : if we take the prophecy of the 
coming dissolution as hteral, we must take the prophecy 
of the coming renovation as hteraL In all events, the 
burden of proof lies with him who accepts the one proph- 
ecy as literal, and declares the other prophecy spiritual. 
Beware of that attenuated, superfine transcendentalism 
which still tinges the modern Christian philosophy in the 
matter of the Future State.% This extreme, unreal super- 
spirituality is a relic of the old Zoroastrian doctrine of 
Dualism, which the Manicheans injected into Christianity, 
or, rather, on which they imposed a few of the Christian 
truths. It is amazing that a notion so thoroughly heatlien 
was not long ago uprooted out of Christian theology. 
"Were we pagans, we might join in the famous thanksgiv- 
ing of the Egyptian Plotinus that he was not tied to an 
immortal body, and, like him, refuse to have our portraits 
taken, on the ground that the human body is a thing too 
contemptible to have its image perpetuated. No ; Matter 
is no more inherently evil than Spirit is. The real antith- 
esis to God is not Matter, but Sin. When the Creative 
Dixit was pronounced, and the universe of Matter sprang 
into being, God saw all that He had made, and, behold, it 
was very good (Gen. i. si). Moreover, it seems impossible — 
at least so long as we are constituted as we now are — that 
the spirit should consciously exist without a body. Ac- 
cordingly, the Apostle Paul longs, not to be unclothed, but 
clothed upon : not to be stripped of his earthly house and 
raiment, and so wander, a houseless, raimentless, disembod- 
ied spirit — ^hovering, like a ghostly phantom, an empty 
shadow, in the blank spaces of eternity : but he longs to 



TALLVGENESIS. 287 

be housed with his tabernacle — clothed upon with his rai- 
ment — which is from heaven — even that nobler, spiritual, 
pneumatic body which shall serve as the perfect vehicle 
and instrument of his spii-it as redeemed, beatified, perfect- 
ed in the Paradise of his God (2 Cor. v. 1-4). But a body 
like tliis, however ethereal, is still material. And a ma- 
terial body must have a material home. Accordingly, I 
firmly believe that Heaven is a place as well as a state, a 
locality as well as a character. In fact, it is precisely be- 
cause Heaven is a material locality that the present Earth 
is a training-school for Heaven. It is the material world 
round us to-day which serves as the arena for personal self- 
discipline. As a matter of fact, we do receive our moral 
training for eternity in to-day's school of Matter. It is the 
]naterial world coming in contact with our moral person- 
alities, through the senses of touching and seeing and hear- 
ing and tasting, which is really and continuously testing 
our moral character. It is, therefore, a very solemn thought 
that the way in which we are impressed by every object 
we consciously sec or touch is probing us, and will testify 
for us or against us on the great Day of God. Heaven 
grant that it may testify for us ! Thus the two worlds — 
the present and the future — are, in a sense, related to each 
other as means to ends. What we sow here we shall reap 
there : and the harvest will, of course, be of the same 
nature as the seed. 

Accordingly, I believe that the new 
(1.) -Elementally j^^avens and earth will be elementally 

Identical uith the ., ., .,i,i i i i 

Present identical With the heavens and earth 

which now are. What though the eartli 

is to be burned up, and the heavens are to pass away with 

a great noise, and the very elements melt with fervent 

heat ? Dissolution is not annihilation. There is no reason 



288 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

to suppose that one single atom of matter ever lias been, or 
ever is likely to be, annihilated. I go into my laboratory, 
and with my chemical apparatus I burn up a pound of 
charcoal. Have I annihilated the charcoal? Yes, the 
charcoal as charcoal, but not the charcoal as consisting of a 
pound of carbon atoms ; the pound of carbon atoms still 
survives. For I carefully weigh the ashes and the smoke 
and the gas of carbonic oxide, and I find that the aggre- 
gate weighs exactly one pound plus the oxygen it has 
accumulated in the combustion. I can annihilate a group 
of molecules as a group of molecules, i. e., as a definite 
mass of atoms : but I cannot annihilate one of the atoms 
themselves. I can alter the phenomena of matter, but I 
cannot annihilate matter itself. ^N'one but the infinite God 
Who created the atoms can annihilate an atom. And hav- 
ino^ created all the atoms, there is no reason to believe that 
He ever has annihilated, or ever will annihilate, one atom. 
When, therefore, the earth shall be burned up, and the 
heavens dissolve, and the elements melt with fervent heat, 
what will become of the atoms 1 They will be somewhere. 
But where ? Eemember, then, that the atoms which hj 
God's creation and providential arrangement constitute the 
earth which now is, constitute an altogether peculiar, abso- 
lutely unique mass of atoms. JS'o other globe, so far as we 
know, can claim a Bethlehem to which the Creator of alJ 
atoms stooped, or an Olivet from which the Creator of all 
atoms soared. Observe, also, that the new heavens and 
new earth are not an absolutely new, original creation : 
they are simply a renovation or re-creation. The Son of 
God Himself expressly speaks of the next world as a Palin- 
genesis, or Second Genesis. Listen : " In the Tlakiyyeve- 
ala — in the Regeneration — when the Son of Man shall sit 
on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit on twelve 



PALINGENESIS. 289 

tlirones,. judging tlie twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. xix. 28). 
Yes, tlie time is coming when the Spirit of God shall again 
move over the face of Jfature, and quicken her into a re- 
generate life. Then there shall be no more curse (Rev. xxii. 3). 
Then it shall be seen that Creation was not a failure. 
Purged, so to speak, in the refining fires of the great Day 
of God, she shall, Phoenix-like, rise from her own ashes 
into a life larger, fuller, stronger, diviner tlian even that 
she received when, at the close of the Sixth Day, the 
Maker of heaven and earth surveyed all that He had made, 
and, lo, it was very good. And so shall be brought to pass 
the saying of the Evangelical Prophet : " Behold, I create 
new heavens and a new earth : and the former shall not 
be remembered, nor come into mind" (Is. ixv. il). 

And this leads me to say that though 
ii'^-rT \^^°"^' the new heavens and earth will be 

enally Different. • n . i . i 

atomically identical with the present, 
yet they will, in all probability, be very different in aspect. 
The greatness of the change is sufiiciently hinted in the 
Vision of St. John : '' I saw a new heaven and a new earth : 
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away ; 
and there was no more sea " (Rev. xxi. i). Water is com- 
posed of oxygen and hydrogen : in the new earth there 
will, doubtless, be oxygen and hydrogen, but no longer in 
the form of oceans. In the matter of elementals, the new 
earth w^ill be identical with the old ; in the matter of phe- 
nomenals, the new earth will be different from the old. 
Chemists teach us that certain substances, notably sulphur, 
phosphorus, and carbon, exhibit at different temperatures 
different aspects, which variety of aspects tliey call allot- 
ropy : e. g., carbon as coal is hard and black ; carbon as 
graphite is soft and iron-gray ; carbon as diamond is ada- 
mantine and dazzling: and yet the substance, whether 
13 



290 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

coal, graphite, or diamond, is one and tlie same substance, 
namely, carbon. Nothing in the realm of science is better 
established than the convertibility of the forms of matter. 
How Protean are the forms, e. g., of water ! Let me but 
mention such words as ocean, vapor, cloud, rain, dew, snow, 
ice, frost, cucumber, sun-iish. Indeed, the first volume of 
the International Scientific Series is Professor Tyndall's 
monograph, entitled : " The Forms of Water." Do not 
presume, then, to limit the versatility of God's omnipo- 
tence. It is precisely this possibility of an indefinite series 
of varieties or differences which has furnished the Apostle 
Paul with one of his strong points in his matchless argu- 
ment for the Resurrection. Listen : " That which thou 
sowest, thou sowest not the body that will be, but a bare 
kernel, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain : 
but Grod giveth it a body as it hath pleased Llim, and to 
each kind of seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the 
same flesh : but there is one kind of flesh of men, another 
flesh of beasts, another flesh of fishes, another of birds. 
There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but 
the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the ter- 
restrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and 
another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars : 
for one star diifereth from another star in glory. So also 
is the Resurrection of the dead " (i Cor. xv. 37-42). The 
future body will probably be atomically identical with the 
present, but it will be molecularly different. The new 
earth will be elementally identical with the old, but not 
phenomenally. Suppose that you had never seen a plant 
or an animal, or that — if such a supposition is possible — 
you had never had even a conception of them. Suppose 
that on the morning of the Third Day of the Creative 
"Week you had stood with the inspired Seer on his Mount 



PALINGENESIS. 291 

of Panoramic Yision. The just-created, cliaotic elements 
of the universe, the organizing Breath, tlie nebulous light, 
the separating expanse, the grouping seas and lands, all 
these have passed bef ore^you. And, beholding these won- 
ders, you might have supposed that the Creator's versatility 
was exhausted. But, lo, and this utterly beyond all range 
of your experience, expectation, or conception, there spring 
up on all sides every variety of plant from diatom to cedar, 
and every variety of animal from amoeba to elephant. 
You had no conception of these possibilities : and yet these 
possibilities have been actually realized in space and in 
time. And we are not to suppose that the Infinite One 
has yet exhausted His resources of versatility. He who 
has wrought the various past can w^ork a future as various. 
Beware, then, how you incur, in this matter of the ISTew 
Heavens and Earth, the Lord's rebuke of the Sadducees in 
tlie matter of the Resurrection : " Ye do err, not knowing 
the Scriptures, nor the power of God " (Matt. xxii. 29). 

Observe now that the Creator has 
„A'-;~' !^^°^ ^''^ *^ had the new heavens and new earth 

IIis Promise. . tt* 

m His plan from the very beginning : 
" ]^ew heavens and new earth do we look for, according to 
His Promise." That Promise He has not only expressly 
and frequently written in His Scripture : that Promise He 
has engraved with IIis own Creative stylus in the very 
constitution of the material universe itself. Ah, how mucli 
those poor unbelievers miss, who, denying Creation and 
Providence, imagine the existing universe to be but "a 
fortuitous concourse of atoms," drifting hither and thither, 
without Pilot or Goal ! No, the end has been foreseen and 
provided for from the beginning. The coming new heav- 
ens and earth are, as a matter of fact, in the eternal Pur- 
pose, older than these ancient heavens and earth which 



292 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

now are : for the Lamb was slain from the foundation of 
the world (Rev. xiii. 8). Yain is it that we have studied the 
Story of the Creative Week if we do not see and feel that 
its real, consummate issue is the l^ew Heavens and Earth. 
For this is that time of the Restitution of all things, of 
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy 
prophets since the world began (Acts iii. 21). 

But the best thing about the new 
ith Riolteout^^^^^ heavens and earth yet remains to be 
° ' told : " 'New heavens and new earth, 

wherein dwelleth Righteousness." Alas, in this present 
evil world or geon. Righteousness is, as it were, but an oc- 
casional visitant, or transient sojourner, ever and anon 
shooting along the sky of the soul with the dazzling but 
momentary gleam of the meteor. In the new heavens and 
earth Righteousness will dwell as an immortal citizen, eter- 
nally radiant as the sun, holding the universe by right of 
eternal Bequest, inheriting the kingdom prepared for it 
from the foundation of the world (Matt. xxv. 34). Ay, 
blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth, yea, 
the very earth itself (Matt. v. 5). For " the earth " of this 
Beatitude is no more a metaphor than the meekness ; " the 
meek shall inherit the earth." This is the real meaning of 
God's mighty Promise to Abraham : " Lift up thine eyes 
and look from the place where thou art, northward and 
southward and eastward and westward : for all the land 
which thou seest, to thee will I give it : and to thy seed 
forever" (Gen. xiii. 14-1 7). That mighty Promise has never 
yet been fulfilled. The redemption of that mighty Prom- 
ise lies amid the august certainties of the l^ew Heavens 
and ISTew Earth. For as Abraham, as the Father of the 
Faithful, was chosen to be Representative of the whole 
Church of the living God, so Canaan was chosen to be the 



PALINGENESIS. 293 

representative of tlie whole eartli itself : and, therefore, 
Earth shall yet be the Church's inheritance. And what a 
glorious estate that heritage will be ! Glorious because occu- 
pied by the righteous. Yes, it is luscious to read of the 
nightless, deathless, tearless City — the City of the pearly 
gates and jeweled foundations and golden streets (Rev. xxi,). 
But it is more luscious to read these three words : "Wherein 
dwelleth Righteousness." Oh, for the sjDcedy realization 
of the blissful vision of that Holy Land where there is 
neither policeman nor penitentiary, neither magistrate nor 
statute book ! Oh, that it might be given us to behold in 
our own day the descending ]^ew Jerusalem, populous and 
radiant with patriarchs and prophets and apostles and mar- 
t}TS and countless saints of every age and land and name ! 
Oh, that we might behold this very afternoon the descend- 
ing, true Tabernacle of God, even His glorious Son, com- 
ing down again, no longer to sojourn among men, tarrying 
as a wayfarer for the night, but to dwell for evermore with 
them, and be their God, and talk with them in the Eden 
of the new earth, even as He was wont to do at the cool of 
the day in the Eden of the old (Gen. iii. 8 ; Rev. xxi. 2, 3) ! 

" O sweet and blessed country, 
The home of God's Elect ! 
O sweet and blessed coimtrj, 
That eager hearts expect ! 
Jesus, in mercy bring us 

To that dear land of rest : 
Who art, with God the Father 
And Spirit, ever blest." 

— (Bernard of Cluny.) 

And so we come to our third and 
3. - The Saintly ^^^^ .^^ . rpj^^ Apostlc's inference from 
Expectation. ^ \^ . t^ . i • i i ^^ 

the Coming Dissolution and the Com- 



294 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

ing E-e-creation : " Seeing tlien that the heavens and earth 
which now are shall be dissolved, and that there are to be 
new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth Kighteous- 
ness, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy 
behavior and godliness, looking for and hastening the com- 
ing of the Day of God ? Wherefore, beloved, seeing that 
ye look for snch things, give diligence that, being spotless 
and blameless, ye may be foimd by Him in peace." 

I am aware that the opinion prevails, 

The Future Life a ^ . • i • n 

T3 ^ T . ,. more or less extensively, especially 

Present Inspiration. . . 

among thoughtful men, that it is a mark 
of weakness to be dwelling much on the Heavenly Here- 
after. " Far better is it," these persons tell us, " to dis- 
charge faithfully the duties of the present life, than to 
concern ourselves with the future, especially as that futui-e 
is so little understood by us. Here, in this life, at any 
rate, at our very feet, is a world of suffering, which is to 
be alleviated : a world of ignorance, to be enlightened : a 
world of sorrow, to be comforted : a world of wickedness, 
to be purified. These are present duties staring us in the 
face. And the motives to the discharge of them, furnished 
by the actual misery of the race, are, or at least ought to" 
be, sufficiently powerful, without seeking to strengthen 
them by motives drawn from a distant and comparatively 
obscure futurity." 

]^ow, in reply to this presentation of the case, and I 
think that those who hold this view will admit that I have 
presented it fairly, I answer that such sentiments are in- 
deed fine-sounding, and really have the appearance of a 
superior generousness and magnanimity. I further admit 
that such sentiments are, to a certain extent, just. I will 
keep pace with the extremest of these philanthropists, and 
say that our duties are to be found in the sphere of the 



PALINGENESIS. 295 

present I, too, insist on it that the noblest life a man can 
live is a life of Christian self-sacrifice for the good of 
others. And if a professing disciple of the ITazarene be 
so intent on the futnre^that he overlooks the present — if 
his eyes be so dazzled by the coming crown that he sees 
not, much less stoops to give his helping hand to, the 
shapes of Poverty and Woe that throng his pathway as 
with flying feet he speeds on in his selfish race — I say of 
this professing Christian that he is leading an ignoble and 
false life, untrue to the world, untrue to himself, untrue 
to his God. 'No, the truest life a man can live is a life of 
love to others in view of the Immortality that is proifered 
to all. And the philanthroj^y that draws none of its mo- 
tives, the philanthropy that does not draw its chief mo- 
tive, from that Immortality which was brought to light at 
Joseph's opened tomb, is an earth-born, narrow, transient 
philanthropy, born wdth the butterfly, and wdth the butter- 
fly dying. Tell a man that though there are to be new 
lieavens and new earth, yet he had better not dwell too 
much on the theme — had better banish it from his thoughts, 
and leave the Hereafter in the hands of his God, and de- 
vote himself to the stern duties of the present : tell him 
this : and you might as well tell him : " There is no 
Heaven. There is no Hereafter." For he will practically 
say to himself : "If the prizes of Immortality are to be 
kept out of mind: if, while I theoretically admit that 
there is a Heaven, I am practically to forget it : if I am to 
devote myself wholly to the present, even though it be for 
the good of others, and live in oblivion of the Hereafter : 
what is Immortality worth to me ? What care I for Im- 
mortality ? Let m_e eat and drink, for to-morrow I die." 
I tell you, my friends, it is only when a man feels within 
himself his immortality, and catches glimpse of the Palm 



296 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

and tlie Sceptre and the Diadem, that he will act like an 
immortal being. I^eep Heaven ont of sight, and man will 
believe himself to be but an ephemeron — the brilliant-hued 
but short-lived insect of a day, conscious, if consciousness 
can be said to belong to a creature so ignoble, of nothing 
but the worm from which it has just sprung, and the dust 
to which it is swiftly doomed. Thank God, not so did the 
Apostle Peter think. He at least believed and felt in his 
inmost soul that the doctrine of the Future Life was a 
doctrine of transcendent practical importance and power. 
Seeing that ye look for these things, even the new heavens 
and new earth, what manner of persons ought ye to be in 
all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasten- 
ing the coming of the Day of God ? Wherefore, beloved, 
seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may 
be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless. 
Ah, it w^as this coming of the Day of God, when the re- 
turning ITazarene shall descend in great power and pomp 
to set up His 'New Heavens and Earth, that w^as the Apos- 
tle's grand inspiration. I do not think that there could be 
a nobler theme for the greatest genius among earth's ar- 
tists, w^hether painter or sculptor, than these three lines of 

Watts : 

" While we expect that blessed Hope, 
The bright Appearance of the Lord, 
And Faith stands leaning on His word." 

And observe : St. Peter not only looked for and longed 
for the coming of the Day of God : he also would, if it 
were possible, hasten the coming, giving it the accelerat- 
ing, blessed momentum of the whole Church's gravitation : 
looking for and hastening the coming of the Day of God. 
And as it was with the Apostle Peter, so was it with the 
whole church in that pristine age. Especially does this 



PALINGENESIS. 297 

Apostolic expectation of the 'New Genesis, or re-creation 
of Nature, gleam out in tlie Epistles of Paul, making tliem 
iridescent with the ever-changing tints of the heavenly 
clime. Look at the writings of this Hero-Spirit. No fine, 
unmanly sentimentalizings are there about death. No 
feeble, effeminate talk about the peace and repose of the 
grave. No nerveless lying down in the funeral shroud. 
But the buckling on of a stouter armor — the straighten- 
ing up for a nobler, swifter race — the breathing in for a 
mightier grapple with the Powers of the world to come. 
Come, ye who think it a weakness to be dwelling much on 
the approaching splendors, and who deem it more noble 
and magnanimous to forget the future in an arduous and 
unselfish devotion to present duties: come, survey this 
Hero of the Ages. Call ye him weak whose mighty spirit 
no dungeon could imprison, no chains fetter, no Caesar 
daunt, no executioner's axe rufile ? Call ye him selfish 
who could have wished, had it been right and possible, that 
he were accursed from Christ for the sake of his brethren 
— his kinsmen according to the flesh : and yet who, not- 
withstanding such intensity of patriotism, also felt that he 
was debtor to Gentile as well as to Jew (Rom. i. i4,ix. 3) ? Call 
ye such a Hero, living though he did in the far-off islands 
that fleck the heavenly deeps, weak and ignoble and selfish ? 
And yet the secret of this man's strength and grandeur 
and victory was his hold on the coming world. Look, I 
again ask you, at the writings of this kingly man. See 
how they blossom with the efflorescence and exhale with 
the perfumes of the coming Eden. In them you behold a 
translated soul : a man whose body is on the earth that 
now is, but whose spirit is on the earth that is to be. It is 
as though that sea of glory, which his fellow-apostle saw in 
visions of Patmos, had been let down with St. Paul when 



298 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

he descended from that third heaven into which he had 
once been canght np, and now swells and surges and breaks 
in celestial thunder on the barriers and reefs of his own 
human but majestic diction. And as it was in the first 
century, so it is in the nineteenth. The certainty of a 
Hereaf ter, big with all manner of eternal weights of glory, 
is still the awakening, purifying, buttressing, uplifting force 
for Society. Let the sense of immortality once be aroused 
— let the power of an endless life once be felt : and the 
moral nature, how^ever sunken, steps forth as from a tomb, 
and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. " All greatest 
souls stretch themselves on the framework of the invisi- 
ble : " growing pure and strong and victorious by moving 
in the kinship of the coming eternals. He that hath this 
Hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure 
(1 John iii. 8). "Wherefore, brethren, seeing that ye look for 
such things, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all 
holy behavior and godliness, looking for and hastening the 
coming of the Day of God ? Give all diligence then to 
become spotless and blameless, and so, when He comes, be 
found by Him in peace. So shall you, too, in company 
with those who have overcome, stand on the sea of glass, 
mingled with fire. So shall you too have harps of God, 
and shall evermore sing the Song of Moses, as he chants 
the ode of the first Creation, and the Song of the Lamb as 
Lie chants the psean of the Second (Rev. xv. 2, s). 

Such is the twofold Story of Crea- 
■ * tioii — the Story of the Eden that has 
been, and the Story of the Eden that is to be. May it not 
be in vain that w^e have thus sped from Eden to Eden ! 
All of us fellow-sharers in the disinheritance from the 
Eden that has been, may all of us, through Grace abound- 
ing, be fellow-sharers in the Inheritance of the Eden that 



PALINGENESIS. 299 

is to be ! This is my farewell wish for each one of you, 
whether acquaintance or stranger. God grant my prayer 
even to-day ! So shall you be numbered among the spirits 
of the just made perfeCf, even those righteous ones who are 
to dwell on the J^ew Earth domed by the 'New Heavens. 
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost : as it w^as in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world w^ithout end. Amen. 



APPENDIX 



ARCHETYPAL FORMS AND 
TELIC FIOURATIORS. 



APPENDIX. 



" My substance was not Lid from Tliee, when I was made in 
secret, and curiously wrouglit in the lowest parts of the earth. 
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperf ect ; and in Thy 
book all my ijiembers were written, which in continuance were 
fashioned, vv'hen as yet there was none of them." — Psalm cxxxix. 
15, 16. 

The theme we propose to establish 
is this : All natural structures are Telic 
Figurations from Archetypal Forms. 

At the outset, then, it is needful 
lb inguiM 'orm ^^^^^ ^^^ distinfi^uisli carefully between 

and I igure. ^ -^ 

Form and Figure : not that the dis- 
tinction is to be found in the books, although it seems to 
me it ought to be. Form, in the large, philosophical sense 
of the term, is not so much shape or visible outline as that 
prior, ideal Something which constitutes a given thing 
what it is — which is the essentiality of it. The Form is 
the Idea existing independently of Matter. The figure 
is the Form actualized in the sphere of Matter — the Idea 
materialized. Thus the Form is the essential : the figure 

' The substance of this Lccturo was delivered some 3'ear8 nffo before the Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Sciences. The (\uthor adds it to the preceding scries because it is 
pertinent to the general scope of the Creative Week, considered as a Precrcative Plan. It 
is but just to add that the subject-matter was supgeeted to him many years apo in reading 
" Typical Foi-ms and Special Ends in Creation," by Professors M'Cosh and Dickie. 



304 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

an incidental. The Form is invariable : the figure vari- 
able. The Form is common to a class : the figure is an 
individual of that class. The Form is the invisible, ideal 
Plan : the figure is a visible, more or less close copy from 
that Plan. The Form is the precedent Idea : the figure 
is the Form as it appears when it comes within the range 
of our senses. Let me illustrate. A caterpillar passes 
from the state of the larva into the state of the butterfly : 
it is an instance of transfiguration, not of transformation. 
True, we speak of the change as a " metamorphosis ; " 
but the metamorphosis is only phenomenal — a change in 
figure : it is not radical, or a change of Form or identity. 
The Form, which no mortal eye has seen or can see, is 
common to the caterpillar and the butterfly : the cater- 
pillar and the butterfly are different figurations from the 
one invisible Form. Were it possible for the caterpillar 
to be changed from an articulate into a mollusk or a verte- 
brate : i. e., were . it possible for the caterpillar to undergo 
" transformation of species : " the change would in that case 
be more than a transfiguration : it would be a transforma- 
tion, or metamorphosis in the strict sense of the term. 

This distinction between Form and 

The Distinction p^g^^j-p^ seems to be recognized in Script- 
recognized in Script- ^ -^ ,. ^ , n j 2. j.t ' 

y^g^ ure. F. g. : " Be not configured to this 

world, but be transformed by the re- 
newing of your mind ; " i. e., undergo more than trans- 
figuration — undergo transformation (Rom. xii. 2). Again : 
Christ Jesus, " being in the Form of God," was " found 
in figure as a man ; " i. e., the Pre-incarnate Son was in the 
Form, the primal, essential Form of God : the Incarnate 
Son appeared in the figure — the assumed, incidental figure 
of a man : in other words, the Logos Incarnate was, so to 
speak, a visible figuration from the invisible Form of the 



APPENDIX. 305 

Logos Pre-incarnate (Phil. ii. 5-8). Once more : " Who will 
transfigure the body of our humiliation, that it may be 
conformed to the body of His Glory " (Phil. iii. 21). Human 
identity lies not in the^^isible, incidental, variable figure : 
it lies in the invisible, essential, archetypal Form. Ac- 
cordingly, the Resurrection, or Spiritual Body, is not a re- 
emergence of the figure, but a new and nobler figuration 
from the Archetypal Fonn. That Archetypal Foi-m, as 
in the case of the caterpillar and butterfly just cited, is 
common to the present figure, or natural body, and the 
coming figure, or spiritual body. It is in that Arche- 
typal Form that the identity consists. The Resurrection, 
then, will be a transfiguration, not a transformation. The 
same thing may be said of the l^ew Heavens and Earth. 
The present heavens and the present earth are to be de- 
stroyed, not in the sense of annihilation, but of transfig- 
uration (2 Peter iii. 10-13). The fashion, figure, o-yrnxa^ of 
this world is passing away (i Cor. vii. 31) : but the Form, 
fjiop(l)T], of it is abiding. In the Palingenesis, when the Son 
of Man shall sit on the throne of His Glory (Matt. xix. 28), 
the new Cosmos wall be identical in Form with the pres- 
ent, but it will be a new figuration. In like manner, as 
we saw in the Tenth Lecture, Jesus Christ Himself, in 
creating man on the Sixth Day, was the Archetypal Man. 
Foreknowing all things from the beginning, foreseeing 
that as Incarnate He would add to His eternal God- 
head a human spirit and soul and body : the Creative 
Word of God (John i. 1-3), cvcn the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world (Kcv. xiii. 8), speaking, as it would 
seem, in the imperial plural, makes solemn annunciation : 
" AVe w^ill make man in Our Image, after Our Likeness " 
(Gen. i. 26). In the Order of time, the Son of God made 
Himself like to man : in the order of purpose, the Son of 



306 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

God made man like to Himself. Thus was Jesus Christ 
the Original, Archetypal Man. From Himself He mod- 
eled mankind : He the Form, mankind the figure. Ah, 
this it is which constitutes the true dignity of Human 
I^ature : grand in its origin, grand in its destiny : grand in 
its origin, because modeled after Christ's own Image : still 
grander in its destiny, because appointed to share in the 
ineffable Glory awarded to Jesus as an incarnate sufferer and 
victor (Phil. ii. 5-11). The Son of God made man after 
the model, not of an angel, but of Himself ; the saint, 
therefore, renewed in the Image of Him "Who created 
him (Col. iii. 10), shall yet be exalted above angel and 
archangel, cherub and seraph. Know ye not that we 
shall judge angels ? (i Cor. vj. 3).' 

JSTow these primal, essential, invari- 

^ Definition of Arche- ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ j.^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ j ^^^^^ 

by Archetypes. The term itself, it is 
hardly necessary to state, is a compound word : apx^i, be- 
ginning, and TVTTo^, stamp. An archetype, then, is the 
prototype, the original fundamental Form, the precedent, 
essential Idea. As such it does not have an objective, 
concrete existence in the world of matter. It is only the 
original pattern, the preexistent idea, as we suppose it 
to lie in the Divine Mind. Archetypes are, so to speak, 
the Creator's Thoughts before they are materialized into 
or represented in things : they are the typal font of 
God's Ideas impressed on the visible page of creation. 
The material, objective universe is a myriadfold illustra- 
tion of a few Archetypal Plans or Ideas in the Mind of the 
Creator. 

1 For instructive comments on the Scriptural distinction between joiop(|>^ and o'x'JMa, 
Form and Figure, see Trench's " New Testament Synonyms," Section bcx. ; Lightfoot's 
" Notes on the Epistle to the Philippians," pp. 125-131 ; and Cremer'a " Biblico-Theolcgical 
Lexicon of New Testament Greek," p. 438. 



APPENDIX. 307 



To make all things such as we now behold, 
It seems that He before His eyes had plast 
A goodly patternivto whose perfect mould 
He fashioned them as comely as He could, 
That now so fair and seemly they appear, 
As naught may be amended anywhere. 

That wondrous patterne, wheresoe'er it be, 
"Whether in earth, laid up in secret store. 
Or else in heaven, that no man may it see 
"With sinful eyes, for fear it to dcflore. 
Is perfect beauty." — (Spenser.) 

To restate: tlie Archetypal Doctrine, then, is briefly 

this : All natural structures are visible figurations, more 

or less exact, from ideal Forms. 

And now let us glance at some il- 
Illustrations of i , ,. /? .i T^ j. • -n i. 

. , ^ , T. lustrations oi the JJoctrme — illustra- 

Archetypal Forms. . i . n t -n i 

tions which, I trust, will also serve as 

confirmations. The field is universe-Avide : of course I 

must content myself with selections. 

,, . We take our first illustration from 

From Motion. n i p t* r • m^ 

the world oi Motion. ihe modern 
theory of atomic motion is built upon the Idea of an 
Archetypal Energy, which energy itself is, in the present 
stage of Science, conceived as motion. In other words : 
the originating, initial Force, whatever that unknown 
thing be, takes on in action different aspects, guises, 
modes, figures. E. g., in a lump of coal, which itself, we 
are told, is but a mass of " condensed sunbeams," Force 
appears in the condition of chemical union and molecular 
aggregation ; ignite the coal, and the Force assumes the 
guise of heat and light : imprison the heat in a boiler of 
water, and the Force emerges in the expansive power of 
steam ; let the expansive power of steam press against 



308 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

a piston, and the Force reappears in the moving train ; 
or let it press against brakes, and the Force reappears in 
the heat of friction ; or let it escape through the valve, 
and the Force reappears in the scream of the whistle. 
Sonnd, heat, light, electricity, chemical affinity, magnet- 
ism, gravitation, seem to be but different modes of Mo- 
tion. The differences are phenomenal, not elemental ; 
they are modifications of an Archetypal Form, which, for 
want of a better name, we call Force, Energy, Motion, 
etc. In fact, this Idea is the basis of the modern doc- 
trines of the Convertibility of Forces and Conservation of 
Energy. The Form is one : the figures are practically in- 
finite. This doctrine of Convertible and Conservative 
Energy, let me remark in passing, is eminently true in 
the sphere of Morals. There is such a thing as metempsy- 
chosis of Christian Service. Herein is fulfilled the true 
saying : " One soweth, another reapeth " (John iv. 35-38). 
Genuine prayer is, sooner or later, here or there, conscious- 
ly or unconsciously, answered. If our God doth not give 
to His beloved in their waking hours. He doth in their 
sleep (Psalm cxxvii. 3). Moral Force, however versatile the 
guises it assumes, is indestructible. 

Our next illustration we take from 

From Number. ^ ^ ^ /. tv-t i 

the Sphere oi JN umber. 
I select for special comment the number Three, which, 
from its extreme prevalence, we may well call the Arche- 
typal Number. Thus Three is the basis of Geometry ; it 
gives us the point, the line, and the surface ; and these are 
the three Geometric elements. Triangulation is itself one of 
the master keys of the problems of Space. Again : Three 
is the basis of Arithmetic. Addition is the union of two 
numbers, making a third : Subtraction is the separation of 
two numbers, also making a third ; Multiplication is but a 



APPENDIX. 309 

complex and swift addition, as Division is but a complex 
and swift subtraction. The Eule of Three is the Golden 
Rule of Arithmetic. Eecall also Kepler's famous problem 
of the Three Bodies.— Again : Three is the basis of crys- 
tallography. All substances in solidifying tend to crystal- 
lize. Each substance in crystallizing takes on its own fig- 
ure. Each figure is built on the framework of three axes. 
The Triaxis is the Fundamental Form or Archetype of the 
crystal world. In fact, crystalline axes are the most perfect 
samples of what I mean by Archetypes, because they are 
purely ideal. And the whole crystal world, is built around 
the Triaxis. True, we may have numerous sub-classifica- 
tions of crystals — e. g., the Monometric, the Dimetric, the 
Trimetric, the Monoclinic, the Diclinic, the Triclinic, etc. 
— these terms taking their names from the various lengths 
and positions of the respective axes. But though for sake 
of convenience and description we may have these various 
classifications, yet the Triaxial conception includes them 
all. The author has amused himself for hours, not with- 
out intellectual and moral profit, in constructing numerous 
varieties of imaginary crystal figures by simply having a 
triaxial framework, the axes of w^hich could be lengthened, 
shortened, rectangled, or inclined at pleasure ; and imposing 
on the ends of these axes, according to their various lengths 
and positions, tin surfaces of various geometrical figures, 
e. g., squares, jDarallelograms, triangles, rhombs, etc., and 
so building up before his very eyes a crystal figure-world. 
The ideal Triaxis is the common, invariable, fundamental 
framework or Archetypal Form : actual crystals are im- 
posed, diversified figures. How simple the Form ! How in- 
finite the figures ! And this is true for all worlds. * Again : 

* "New crystalline forms (figures?) might be found in the depths of Space, but the laws 
of crystallography would be the same that are displayed before us among the crystals of 



310 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

Three is the basis of Architecture, and, indeed, of every 
human structure. E. g. : When the axes are equal and 
rectangular, we have the cubical style, as the square fort, 
or the square meeting-house of the Pilgrims. Inscribe 
a sphere in a cube, and bisect it ; the hemisphere be- 
comes a dome, as the Pantheon. Or when the axes are 
unequal and rectangular, we have the prismatic style, as the 
Parthenon, the Cruciform, etc. Inscribe a cylinder in a 
prism, and we have the column. The Gothic arch is the 
segment of a dome, or a cylindered prism. Thus, from 
the Archetypal Porm of three axes we can figurate an 
endless variety of structures. Again : Three is the basis 
of Mechanics : a something to be moved, a moving force, 
and an instrument : these are the three essentials of Dy- 
namics. Again : Three is the basis of Society : Father, 
Mother, Child : from these Three Humanity in all its 
manifold relations is derivable. Once more : Three is the 
basis of Man : Spirit, Soul, Body, irvevjia, ^Jrvxi], crco/xa ; 
these, according to Holy Scripture, are the three compo- 
nents of Man. Thus, everywhere in the universe we see 
the number Three ; and so everywhere in the universe we 
may sea a suggestion of the ever Blessed and Adorable 
Trinity. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to 
the Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and 
ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 

So, too, the laws of Gravitation, Statics, Acoustics, 
Chemics, Optics, Pneumatics, Magnetics, Astronomies; 
the angles of Crystals, the spirals of Plants, the tentacles 
of Radiates, the whorls of Mollusks, the rings of Articu- 

the earth. A text-book on Crystallography, Physics, or Celestial Mechanics, printed in 
our printing-offices, would serve for the universe. The universe, if open throughout to 
our explorations, would vastly expand our knowledge, and Science might have a more 
beautiful superstructure ; but its basement laws would be the same."— (Dana' s " Manual 
OF Geology,-' pp. 3, 4.) 



APPENDIX. 311 

lates, the teeth of Yertebrates, the measures of Poetry and 
Music, etc. ; these are all reducible to numerical language. 
It is possible that some Newton may yet discover some 
Archetypal l^umber T^f Numerical Form which shall be 
common to all these endlessly-varied figures. Nor should 
we forget to mention the Archetypal Seven of Holy 
Scripture. Indeed, there seems to be a good deal of truth 
in the doctrine of Pythagoras that Numbers are the 
Princijpia of the Universe, the essence of all things, the 
Paradigms, irapaheiyiiara, of all that is. Not altogether 
fanciful is it to talk with him of the "Music of the 
Spheres." 

" From liarrnony, from heavenly liarmcny, 
This universal frame began : 
When Nature underneath a lieap 

Of jarring atoms lay, 
And could not heave her head, 
The tuneful voice was heard from high, 

Arise, ye more than dead. 
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, 
In order to their stations leap. 
And Music's power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
This universal frame began : 
From harmony to harmony, 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in Man." 

—("St. Cecilia's Day.") 

Our next illustration we take from 
.m r}oog}. ^^^^ realm of Primordial Life. It is 
the teaching of modern Science that every component of 
every organic structure is built on the Idea of an Arche- 
typal Cell, or rather Bioplast, the departures being telic. 
It is one of the most startling disclosures of the Micro- 



312 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

scope. However vast tlie difference between the fnll- 
grown plant and the full-grown animal, plant and animal, 
at least so far as our present optical powers extend, seem 
gradually to approach each other as we analyze their com- 
ponent parts, and finally meet in an apparently common kind 
of structure — the individual, structureless, elementary bio- 
plast. The Archetypal, Ideal Bioplast is the Form ; the 
actual plant or animal is a visible figuration from that invis- 
ible Form. Every actual cell is the transfiguration of the 
Archetypal cell for a specific purpose : say, e. g., for pro- 
ducing, in the plant, fibre ; or, in the animal, man. Thus 
there is community as well as simplicity of Plan in ele- 
mental structure throughout the Organic world. Yet what 
endless variety of modification for special purposes ! How 
diverse, e. g., are leaf, and pollen, and bark — epidermis, and 
muscle, and bone, and hair, and blood, and brain ! 

Let Botany furnish us wdth our next 

illustration. The modern doctrine of 

Vegetable Morphology is this : Every part of a plant is 

built on the Idea of an Archetypal Leaf, the departures 

being telic. 

It may be well at this point to indulge in a brief his- 
toric survey. In the year 1759, Wolff announced his be- 
lief in the identity of all the various parts of a plant. His 
language is : " In the whole plant we see nothing but leaves 
and stalk." His idea was that the different parts of a 
flower are nothing but green leaves in a state of arrested 
development. Here is a glimpse of our theory as applied 
to the vegetable kingdom, viz. : all the parts of a plant 
are figurations from an Archetypal Leaf. Linnaeus, in 
his " Prolepsis Plantarum," published somewhere between 
1760 and 1770, uses this singular phrase: "The princi- 
ple of flowers and leaves is the same." He declared that 



APPENDIX. 313 

the calyx, corolla, stamens, pistils, are each evolved in suc- 
cession from the leaf, and this evolution he styled prolepsis, 
or anticipation. His idea was this : When a plant j^roduces 
a flower, Nature anticipates the regular practice of several 
years ; that is to say, the plant, instead of bearing regular 
green leaves several years in succession, suddenly brings 
them all out simultaneously, so that the leaves, instead of 
being usually-shaped and green, become the different 
parts of the flower. In other words, the flower-leaves are 
stem-leaves anticipated. Here we have an awkward, bun- 
gling, violent attempt by the great botanist to account for 
what he felt to be true, and what has since been shown to 
be true, viz., the community of structure throughout all 
the parts of a j)lant. But the first distinct enunciation 
and elaborate unfolding of the grand principle which is 
now recognized in the councils of Science as the funda- 
mental law of vegetable morphology was made, not by an 
eminent physicist, but by a poet of singularly creative fancy, 
the weird genius to whose name " Faust " has given immor- 
tality. In 1790, Goethe gave to the world his famous 
" Yersuch, die MetamorjDhose der Pflanzen zu erldaren." 
His idea was this : All parts of a plant are metamorphoses 
of its original principle. " Possessed with the idea of a 
poetic synthesis in ISTature," and impelled by the over- 
mastering idea of unity in the vegetable world, he con- 
ceived that every part. of a plant — leaf, calyx, corolla, stamen, 
pistil, fruit — is a successive metamorphosis of the original 
cotyledon. Goethe was right in reducing every part of a 
plant to a community of form. But Goethe was wrong in 
representing, e. g., the plant-leaves as metamorphosed 
stem-leaves. The true theory is this : not only the floral 
organs, but every part of the plant, are figurations for 
special ends from what we call an Archetyj)al Leaf : that 
14 



314 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

is to say, every part of the plant is eonstnicted on the 
model of an Archetypal Leaf. "Wolff in 1759, Linnaeus 
between 1760 and 1770, Goethe in 1790, De Candolle in 
1827, and Schleiden in 1836, alike asserted the commu- 
nity of structure in the folial and the floral leaves. Wolff 
explained it on the theory of a,rrested development ; i. e., 
as the sap ran higher it was less pure, and hence the flower 
was an evidence of imperfection. Linnseus explained it 
on the theory of anticipation. Goethe explained it on 
the theory of metamorphosis, or development by elabo- 
rated sap ; i. e., as the sap ran higher, it became more 
refined, and so, in opposition to Wolff, the flower was 
an evidence of perfection. De Candolle and Schleiden 
explained it on the theory of a modified Archetypal Leaf. 
And this latter theory may now be considered as estab- 
lished. Accordingly, Professor Schleiden has constructed 
the figure of a full-grown Archetypal Plant, every part of 
which from radix to pistil suggests a leaf. 'Not that there 
is actually existing in the world of matter such a thing as 
an Archetypal Leaf or Plant. Schleiden's Idea of Leaf 
and Plant is a scientific creation, conceived for the purpose 
of meeting as approximately as possible the Archetypal 
Plan as existing in the Precreative Mind. Approximately, 
I say ; for since Science, in consequence of the limitations 
of our finitehood, must necessarily always be more or less 
imperfect, we can discover the Divine Plans or Archetypes 
only imperfectly. It becomes us, then, when explaining 
these Archetypal thoughts of God, to proceed with diffi- 
dence and caution. This, in fact, is the real end of Science, 
viz., to discover, if j)ossible, these moulding, typal thoughts 
of God. And each science is false, or at least fails of its 
proper end, in proportion as it leads us away from these 
primal, modeling thoughts of God. And each science is 



APPENDIX. 315 

true, in proportion as it helps us to discover, and worship- 
fully live over again, the moulding, archetypal thoughts of 
God, anterior to Ilis Creative Fiat. ]^or is this theory, 
that every part of an "actual plant is a figuration from an 
Ideal, Archetypal Leaf, a mere conceit. It seems to be 
proved by the changes actually occurring in plant-life, as 
affected by accidents of position, nutriment, exposure, cul- 
ture, retarded and accelerated developments, etc. As a 
matter of fact, leaves do sometimes glide into bracts, or 
into sepals, sepals into petals, petals into stamens, and even 
stamens into pistils. The theory is confirmed by the phe- 
nomena of monstrosities, so called. In fact, the art of hor- 
ticulture is based on this idea of modifying the Arche- 
t}^al Leaf. The cultivated flowers of our gardens, such 
as the rose, tulip, camellia, double or neutral flowers, are 
examples of " metamoi'phosed leaves," or rather they are 
transfigurations of the Archetypal Leaf or Form. Thus 
the whole vegetable world, with its hundred thousand spe- 
cies of flora, has community of Plan, built throughout 
on the Idea of an Archetj^al Leaf. 

Let the Animal Kin2:dom supply us 

Fiom Anatomy. . . .„ . ^ -^ ^ -^ 

With our next illustration. 
Suppose v/e were endowed with creative power, and 
vrcre purposing to make a world with as many different 
animals in it as there actually are in this. Two methods 
would lie before us. Either Vv^e might make each animal 
independently of every other, so that there would be noth- 
ing common to any two animals, except by accident or 
v/him ; or we might have one, two, three, or more plans, ac- 
cording to one of which we would make one class of ani- 
mals, according to another of which a second class, and so 
on. This latter — reverently I say it — has been the Crea- 
tor's method. Hence the Protozoates, Iladiatcs, Molluskates, 



316 STUDIES IN THE CREATIYE WEEK. 

Articulates, Yertebrates, of Comparatiye Anatomy. Let us 
confine our attention to that department to which we our- 
selves belong — the Vertebrates. The modern doctrine of 
Osteology is this : Every part of every skeleton is built on 
the Idea of an Archetypal Vertebra, the departures being 
telic. 

As in the case of Plants, so here, let me give a brief 
historic sketch. If, as we have seen, the grand concep- 
tion of Unity in Mature led an illustrious poet to the theory 
of vegetable metamorphosis, in order to account for the 
similarity of structure in plants, we need not be surprised 
that the same conception should have led the same poet to 
the theory of osseous metamorphosis, in order to account 
for the similarity of structure in certain animals. Profes- 
sional anatomists, indeed, sneered at the illustrious poet, as 
a " dabbler in comparative anatomy, who mistook his vo- 
cation when he left Parnassus for cabbages and bones." 
But Goethe, though no mathematician or physicist, as the 
signal failure of his doctrine of colors in opposition to 
iSTewton shows, though no metaphysician, was truly poet 
and philosopher. In fact, the line which separates the 
great poet from the great philosopher is the narrowest pos- 
sible, being, so to speak, a line contingent rather than a line 
absolute. A great philosopher is a great poet with his 
wings undeveloped. A great poet is a great philosopher 
with his wings clipped. Between the "Ivro\Tim Organon" 
and the " Hamlet " is but an infant's tiny step. Bacon and 
Shakespeare need to have changed scarcely more than cir- 
cumstances to have changed fames. It is not strange, then, 
that a great poet — a true, real poet — should have discov- 
ered, among cabbages and bones, sublime truths of which 
professional and merely scientific botanists and anatomists 
had never dreamed, ^ow to Goethe belongs the credit of 



APPENDIX. 317 

being the founder of the grand doctrine of Typal Organic 
Morphology, i. e., the doctrine that animals, as well as 
plants, are constnicted, with more or less of modifications, 
after certain Archetypes. The structure of man had al- 
ways been separated from that of even the highest animals 
by the assumed fact that man had no intermaxillary bone. 
But Goethe, in 1784, discovered this precise bone in man. 
Impelled and guided by the grand conception of Unity in 
iN^'ature, he reasoned in this way : All animals having in- 
cisor teeth have also an intermaxillary bone : man has 
incisor teeth ; therefore man has an intermaxillary bone. 
" Anatomists, lost in details, and wanting that fundamental 
conception wdiich now underlies all philosophical anatomy, 
saw no abstract necessity for such identity of composition, 
the more so as evidence seemed wholly against it. But 
Goethe was not only guided by the true philosophic con- 
ception ; he was also instinctively led to the true method of 
demonstration, viz., the comparison of the various modifi- 
cations which this bone underwent in the animal series. 
This method has now become the method, and we need to 
throw ourselves into the historic position to appreciate 
its novelty at the time Goethe employed it. He found, on 
comparison, that the bone varied with the nutrition of llic 
animal and the size of its teeth. lie found, moreover, that 
in some animals the bone w^as not separated from the jaw ; 
and in children the sutures were traceable. lie admitted 
that, seen from the front, no trace of the sutures was viisi- 
ble, but on the interior there were unmistakable traces. 
Examination of the foetal skull has since set the point be- 
yond dispute." ^ Now the discovery, in 1784, on what wo 

1 " Life and Works of Goethe," by G. H. Lewes, vol. ii., p. 140. This entertaining bi«p- 
rapher adds : " I have seen one (a skull) where the bone was distinctly separated ; and I 
possess the skull of a female, the ossification of which is far advanced at the parietal sutures, 
yet internally the traces of the intermaxillary are visible." 



318 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

may call an a jpriori method, of the intermaxillary bone, 
was the prelude to Goethe's Essay on the " Metamorphosis 
of Plants," published in 1790, and also to his '' Sketch of 
the Universal Introduction to Comparative Anatomy, be- 
ginning with Osteology," published in 1795. Here we 
liave the first distinct recognition of an osteological Arche- 
type. To say nothing of the testimonies of Carus, St.- 
Hilaire, and others, let me cite the testimony of Richard 
Owen, a supreme authority in such matters : " Goethe had 
taken the lead in inquiries of this nature, by his determi- 
nation of the homology of that part of the human upper 
maxillary bone which is separated by a more or less exten- 
sive suture from the rest of the bones in the foetus ; and 
the philosophical principles, propounded in the great phi- 
losopher's anatomical essays, called forth the valuable la- 
bors of the kindred spirits, Oken, Bajanus, Meckel, Carus, 
and other eminent cultivators of anatomical philosophy." ' 
Before dismissing Goethe, it may be interesting to 
allude to a curious charge of plagiarism alleged against the 
illustrious poet. It is the fashion to ascribe the Yertebral 
Theory of the Skull to Lorenz Oken. The current story 
is that, while rambling in the Hartz Mountains, Oken picked 
up the bleached skull of a roebuck, and, after contemplating 
the partially separated bones, exclaimed : " It is a vertebral 
column ! " ISTow here is another curious story : During one 
of his rambles in the Jewish cemetery near Yenice, Goethe 
picked up the skull of a ram which had been cut longitudi- 
nally, and, on examining it, the idea occurred to him that 
the face was composed of three vertebrae. Goethe declares 
that he made his discovery in 1Y90. Oken declares that 
he made his discovery in 1806. Here is a difference of 
sixteen years between the two alleged discoveries. Now, 

1 "Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton." 



APPENDIX. 319 

if tliere be any plagiarism in tlie affair, wliicli is tlie plagi- 
arist ? Oken, who survived Goethe a score of years, de- 
fends his own claim with the ardor of personal and possibly 
piqued pride. Lewes-^lefends Goethe's claim with the 
ardor of an admiring biographer. A comparison, such as 
Lewes himself suggests, probably gives the right solution. 
" Goethe had an apergic which he did not develop. Oken 
had an apergu which he demonstrated in detail. In Goethe's 
mind it was one of the many applications of a fundamental 
conception of organic evolution — a conception which led 
to his discovery of the intermaxillary. In Oken it was a 
special problem, which a young anatomist set himself to 
solve." ^ In other words, Goethe conceived the idea, Oken 
demonstrated the fact. 

But to resume the thread of the history. In 1795, 
Goethe published his "Animal Morphology." In 1807, 
Oken published his " Signification of the Bones of the 
Skull," in which he maintains that these bones are equal 
to four vertebrae. In 1815, Spix, in his " Cephalogene- 
sis," reduced the cranial vertebrae to three, and, moreover, 
extended the application of the Yertebral Theory to tlie 
heads of all classes of animals, especially of fishes. In 
1824, St.-Hilaire presented a lithographic plate to the 
French Academy, entitled "Composition de la Tete Osseusc 
chez I'Homme et les Animaux." In 1834, Carus main- 
tained the idea that the entire skeleton is nothing but a 
vertebra repeated. In 1848, Owen published his "Arche- 
type and Homologies of the Yertebrate Skeleton," in which 
he has done immense service by giving to the Archetypal 
Doctrine a scientific form, and by inventing an admirably 
expressive terminology. In 1856, M'Cosh published his 
" Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," in which 

» "Life of Goethe," vol II., p. ICl. 



3^0 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

lie seeks, as his main object, to show, and, as it seems to 
me, triumphantly, that modifications of or departures from 
the Archetype are telle. But I shall recur to this. 

Meantime, observe what our proposition is. It is this : 
Every bone of every vertebrate animal is copied, with 
more or less of closeness, from some part of an Archetypal 
Vertebra. The simple fact that animals differing from 
one another so much, e. g., as the trout, and toad, and 
turtle, and viper, and eagle, and mouse, and whale, and 
man, are nevertheless referable to one and the same class, 
viz., the Vertebrate, shows that there is some Idea, Plan, 
Type, Form, common to them all. That common Form 
is the Vertebral Idea ; hence they are called Vertebrates. 
It does not need the practised eye of one initiated in the 
mysteries of Comparative Anatomy to detect the general 
resemblance between the skeletons of these various animals. 
What deceives us is that which is imposed on the frame- 
work of the animal, such as flesh, skin, feathers, shell, fur, 
scales. Kemove all the soft parts from the skeletons of a 
man, a dog, an ostrich, a lizard, a salmon, leaving only the 
bony framework, and even an unprofessional will perceive 
a general resemblance. The skeleton of a creeping infant 
is like that of a quadruped ; the skeleton of a man recum- 
bent is like that of a fish. The penguin is a bird ; yet its 
wings remind us of the fins of a fish ; its wrings and feet, of 
a quadruped; its erect posture, of a man. These exam- 
ples are enough to show us that a common Idea per- 
vades the Vertebrate Kingdom : and that Idea is the 
Vertebra. Accordingly, as Schleiden has constructed an 
Archetypal Leaf and Plant, which Plant is but the Leaf 
repeated and modified for specific purposes, so Owen 
has constructed an Archetypal Vertebra and Skeleton, 
which Skeleton, in its turn, is but the Vertebra repeated 



APPENDIX. 321 

and modified to meet special requirements. 'Not that 
this Archetypal Yertebra or Skeleton has an actual, ob- 
jective existence in the world of matter : it is conceived 
to be the Primal, IdeaT Form, from which every actual 
vertebra and skeleton is a figuration. And this Ideal Form 
or Archetype, as is evident from a glance at Owen's dia- 
grams, is common to the skeleton of the Fish, the Reptile, 
the Bird, and the Mammal. Yet the modifications of the 
Archetypal Yertebra, to meet the distinct needs of differ- 
ent animals, are endlessl}^ varied. How different, e. g., are 
the fins of fishes, the wings of birds, the forelimbs of quad- 
rupeds, the arms of man ! ^Nevertheless, they are homo- 
logues, i. e., the same structural organ under a variety of 
figures. According to Sir Charles Bell, " the bat's wing is 
a highly-organized hand." The horse has one finger, the 
ox two, the rhinoceros three, the hippopotamus four, the 
elephant five. And the Yertebral Idea is common to them 
all. And it is true of the entire skeleton of each. It 
is asserted that ninety per cent, of the bones of the hu- 
man skeleton have their namesakes or homologues in the 
skeletons of all vertebrates. That is to say : the Arche- 
typal Form is one; the figurations are practically count- 
less. And it has been so from the beginning, when the 
first Ganoid darted in the Silurian Sea. The Archetypal 
Yertebra has been the ideal, initial, potential, invariable, 
common Form ; the actual bone has been a modified, 
specialized, telic figuration. 

Our last illustration we take from 

Fro:!! ]\Ian. . . . ^ .. 

the realm of Man. 

The Ideas of Space and Time and Cause ; the axioms 

of Geometry and Mechanics and Psychology ; the Ethical 

Intuitions ; the unconscious, automatic Fornmlas of Life : 

what are these but Archetypal Ideas or Forms? All 



322 STUDIES IN THE CKEATIVE WEEK. 

thought and sentiment and purpose crystallize, or rather 

move, about a few axiomatic axes. Axioms are, so to 

speak, the Archetypal Yertebrse of all thinking and feeling 

and willing and acting. What simplicity of Plan ! "What 

infinitude of detail ! 

I have thus endeavored to show, by 

. , TT^^ ^ specimen illustrations, that all creation 

cient Utterances. ,^ i i i /• n • i -t-»i 

IS modeled after a few simple Plans. 

How significant, in light of this Doctrine, are some of the 
utterances of antiquity ! E. g., of Bacon, when he said ; 
" Forms are the True Objects of Knowledge." Of the 
Mediaeval Realists, when they afiirmed : ^' The Class exists 
before the Individual." Of the author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, when he wrote : " Through faith we per- 
ceive that the world was framed by the Word of God; 
so that not from the things which appear was made that 
which is seen : " that is to say, the visible world is 
modeled after an invisible. Of Aristotle, when he assert- 
ed : " Forms are as necessary to the Universe as Matter." 
Of Plato, when he declared : " God is the Maker of 
Forms." Of David, when he sang : " My form was not 
hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, was curi- 
ously wrought in the depths of the earth: Thine eyes 
saw my unformed substance, and in Thy book were all 
my members written; day by day were they fashioned, 
when there was none of them." 

And we may bless the Creator that 
. ^"f!'!^?! *^? ^''- He was pleased to construct the universe 

SIS of Classification. ^ . i -rn -i^ • • j.i 

alter a lew, simple Plans. 1^ or it is the 
fact that there are Archetypal Forms which makes scien- 
tific classification possible. There are two methods of 
classification : the artificial, which groups according to in- 
cidentals ; and th3 natural, which groups according to 



APPENDIX. 323 

essentials. It is the figure wliicli is incidental ; it is the 
Form which is essential. The Archetypal Form is com- 
mon to an indefinite, practically infinite number of figures, 
and so is the characteristic of each. In fact, Type and 
Character, tutto? and %a/3a/cT?7p, are synonymous, meaning 
impress, mark, sign, and so characteristic. Accordingly, 
it is the recognition of the Archetypal Form which is the 
basis of a natural, scientific, true classification. Precisely 
because Cuvier was dominated by the Idea of a Vertebra, 
he was able to group Fish and Reptile and Bird and Mam- 
mal into one class — the Yertebrate. Without Archetypal 
Forms, men might have known heterogeneous multa^ but 
not homogeneous midticm. With Archetypal Forms, men, 
not knowing Quidta, yet may know onidtum. For Arche- 
typal Forms assort and label classes ; and classes may 
comprise countless individuals. The Final Cause of 
Archetypes, then, so far as man is concerned, is to make 
possible for him classification, generalization, induction, 
science : a knowledge of generals, ever growing more 
and more inclusive. Archetypes, therefore, are them- 
selves telic. They are for man's help, and so, tlirough 
man's help, for God's glory. 

In treating our Thesis, I have had 
Vaiiations from j.^pg^^g^j occasion to alludc to the fact 

Archetypes Tclic. -•■ 

that departures from Archetypal Forms 
are telic : that is to say, with view to special exigencies. 
In fact, the subject of this Lecture is ArchetyjDal Forms 
and Telic Figurations. Let me, then, briefly discuss the 
doctrine of Telic Adjustments. In doing this, let me 
draw my first illustration from the Yegetable World. Let 
us start with a plant at its germination. The first thing 
which the embryo needs is nourishment". This is provided 
in the cotyledons or seed-leaves, which inclose the embryo, 



324 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

and which, usually form the chief bulk of the seed, as in 
the pea, almond, acorn, etc. The leaf-figure of these co- 
tyledons is often very marked : e. g., the bean. In fact, 
we call them seed-leaves. Thus the cotyledon is the Ar- 
chetypal Leaf modified for purposes of embryonic nour- 
ishment : it has become a nursing leaf. But now our plant 
is above-ground. Yet it still needs nourishment, though 
of a different kind and on a larger scale ; it needs air, 
light, warmth, moisture, etc. And for these purposes the 
stem-leaves, or leaves in the common use of the term, are 
a perfect contrivance. Observe how their arrangement 
follows the law of the Spiral : an arrangement which 
allows the largest exposure of leaf -surf ace : e. g., the fa- 
mous Washington Elm at Cambridge, averaging an annual 
production of ^00,000,000 leaves, exposes, as a result of 
the Spiral arrangement, 200,000 square feet, or about five 
acres, of foliage. Thus aerial leaves are deviations from the 
Archetypal Leaf for purposes of nourishment by exposure 
to air, light, and wet. But our growing plant must not be 
selfish, living for itself alone : it must provide for succes- 
sors — ^it must be ]3arental. Observe how this is effected. 
Contract the distance between the leaves as spirally ar- 
ranged along the stem, by shortening their common axis, 
and you bring these leaves together into substantially the 
same plane, so that they appear as a series of concentric 
rings or whorls : that is to say — a flower. And the flower 
is the reproductive apparatus. Yet its various parts are 
but modifications of the Archetypal Leaf. Even an un- 
professional calls sepals and petals flower-leaves. Thus 
floral leaves are variations of the Archetypal Leaf for pur- 
poses of reproduction. And so every part of a plant, 
bark, bract, tendril, spine, pitcher, fly-trap, scale, etc., is a 
modification of the Archetypal Leaf for some specific end, 



APPENDIX. 325 

e. g.j nourishment, protection, climbing, etc. Again : Let 
me illustrate from Vertebrate Anatomy. The Archetype, 
or Fundamental Form, is the Vertebra. This Fundamen- 
tal Form may be modified for a thousand different and 
special ends, e. g., for purposes of swimming, creeping, 
burrowing, climbing, walking, flying, grasping, support- 
ing, hearing, masticating, etc., etc. It was this fact of telic 
modification, or adjustment to specific ends, w^hich fur- 
nished Cuvier wdth that master principle by which he was 
enabled to reconstruct in such large and w^onderful meas- 
ure the Pre-Adamite world. A fossil bone w^as brought 
before him ; he observed its shape and processes ; he asked 
what these things meant ; the answer was the reconstructed 
animal. In brief : the doctrine of Final Causes was the 
key to his magnificent success. And here it was that he 
came into collision with St.-Hilaire. M. Soret, in his 
" Supplement to Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe," 
tells a story quite in point : 

'■''Monday, August 1, 1830. — The news of the Revolution of July 
reached Weimar to-dav, and set every one in commotion. I went in 
tlie course of the afternoon to Goethe. ' Now,' exclaimed he, as I 
entered, ' what do you think of this great event ? The volcano has 
come to an eruption : everything is in flames ! ' 'A frightful story,' 
I answered ; ' but what could be expected otherwise under such no- 
toriously bad circumstances, and with such a ministry, than that the 
whole would end in the expulsion of the royal family?' ' We do not 
appear to understand each other, my good friend,' said Goethe : ' I 
am not speaking of those people, but of something quite different ; I 
am speaking of the contest, so important for Science, between Cuvier 
and Geoff roy St.-Hilaire, which has come to an open rupture in the 
Academy.' " ^ 



No wonder that Eckermann was astonished ; yet he 
have been. The battle betwe( 

1 Lewes's " Life of Goethe," vol. il., pp. 442, 443. 



ought not to have been. The battle between St.-IIilaire 



326 STUDIES IN THE CREATIVE WEEK. 

and Cuvier was a battle of Ideas ; and Ideas are the most 
real of things. St.-Hilaire championed the Doctrine of 
Analogies, or Unity of Plan in ;N"atiire : Cuvier championed 
the Doctrine of Final Causes, or Purpose in Nature. St.- 
Hilaire said : " I take care not to ascribe to God any in- 
tention : I observe facts merely, and go no further : I am 
content to be the historian of what is." Cuvier said : 
" Whatever exists has a purpose assigned it : every bone, 
joint, process, has a meaning. I must not only observe 
what is — I must also ask what the is is for^ Thus ask- 
ing, that imperial Genius succeeded in re-creating, in large 
measure, out of torsos and fossil bones, the pre- Adamite 
animal world. 

Summary While, therefore, the Theory of Ar- 

chetypal Forms demands a Planning 
Creator, the Theory of Telic Figurations demands a 
Planning Adjuster. What Mr. Darwin calls I^atural Se- 
lection, I would call God's Telic Adjustment, configuring 
the Archetypal Form to a sj)ecial need. It is not, as the 
evolutionists hold, that the pickerel was transformed by 
vertebral metamorphosis into the tortoise, and the tortoise 
into the owl, and the owl into the gorilla, and the gorilla 
into Adam. It is that pickerel, tortoise, owl, gorilla, 
Adam, are modifications of the Archetypal Yertebra for 
specific purposes. God as Creator conceived the Archety- 
pal Form : God as Arranger — whether directly, by a pres- 
ent, active volition, or indirectly, by natural laws of His 
own appointing, it matters not — evolves figurations indefi- 
nitely various, adjusting them to necessities as occasioned 
by new conditions : and this along the ideal axis of the 
Archetypal Yertebra. 

Pe vie wing, then, the Creative Week 

vKog Kai £ og. ^^ ^ system of Archetypal Forms, and 



APPENDIX. 327 

siii-vejing the organic structures of to-day as a system of 
Telic Figurations, be it ours to join with the four Liv- 
ing Creatures and the four-and-twenty Elders of the Apo- 
calypse, in falling down before Him Who sitteth on the 
throne, and worshiping Him Who liveth for ever and ever, 
and casting our crowns, before the throne, saying : " Thou 
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power ; 
for Thou createdst all things, and by reason of Thy will 
they are, and were created " (Rev. iv.). 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



PAGE 

Africa : and Europe contrasted 10 

Air : the symbol of Holy Spirit 52 

Allotropy : sheds light on Palingenesis. 289 

Altruism : the true 112 

Altruist : the true 112 

Animals : Creator's delight in making.. . 161 

emergence of. 157 

fecundity of 171 

have " souls " 163 

issue of fifth and sixth days 156 

moral meaning of 162 sq. 

morphology of. 317 

perhaps immortal 166 

succession of, a progress 157 

Anno Domini: the phrase a testimony 

to Christ. 152 

Anthropology 183, 104 

Anthropomorphism 65 

Antediluvian patriarchs : largely cotem- 

porary 10 

Aqueous Vapor : weight of 83 

Archetype : definition of 80G 

Archetypes : final cause of 823 

variations from, telle 323 

Archetypal Forms : the Creator's ideas. 306 

Architecture : three, basis of 310 

Arithmetic : three, basis of. 808 

Astrology : the false and the true 148 

Astronomic difficulties 67, 139 

Authority : birth of. 190 

Axioms, archetypal vertebrae of man 322 

Bible : not a scientific book, yet impli- 
cates scientific truths 91 

twofold : nature and Scripture 14, 29 

Body : the present and future 200 

Breath of God : meaning of 52 

organizer of chaos 61 



PAGE 

Causes : measured by effects 39 

Chaos : organized by breath of God 51 

original form of matter 43 

picture of 49 

traditions of. 49 

Charisms : the Spirit's 115 

Charter : man's original 190 

Cherubim : significance of 167 

Christ and Church : a unity 238 

Christ : God in articulation 181 

His mission, a restoration of Image . . 186 

His nature threefold 181 

the Archetypal man 193 

the Image of God 179 

the Light of the world 73 

the Nexus of heaven and earth 96 

the Parable speaker 28 

the Shadow of God 77 

the true Adam 25 

thQ true Altruist 112 

the true Bread 26 

the true Bridegroom 236 

the true Language 213 

the true Prometheus 73 

the true Sabbath 272 

the true Sun 152 

Christianity; the true meridian 153 

Church : Christ's second self 289 

Nature's real Lord 196 

Parousia : the time of her bridal 241 

the true Body 25 

the true Bride 2."(> 

the true Moon \'yi 

the true Pharos 80 

Classification : two methods of 822 

Coast-lines : and civilization 104 

Correspondence : doctrine of. 24 

Creation : a miracle 43 



330 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



PAGE 

Creation : an origination, not a formation 83 

a problem for faith 42 

a question of the times 22 

a summons to worship 45 

dissolution of 282 

final causeof 44 

measured by weight rather than bulk 33 

not a failure ^S9 

the expectant 1T4 

the future of 2S1 

the groaning 170 

Creative Week : chief point of modern 

assault 14,22 

divided into twin triads 13S 

moral meaning of. 24 

retrospect of 2T3 

Ciystallography : three, the basis of . . . . 307 

Dead Sea : why it does not overflow 87 

Deity : apprehensible only through med- 
itation 180 

Design : shown in evaporation . 87 

Differentiation : essential to individuali- 
ty 108 

the condition of Ufe 108 

Dissolution : not annihilation 283 

suddenness of 285 

Duty : birth of Ill 

Earth : the new , 286 

Eden : a parable of the soul 218 

a topographical problem 200 

emergence of. 201 

the heavenly 220 

Effects : proportional to their causes. .. 39 

Egypt : worship of animals in 166 

Europe and Africa : contrasted 104 

Evaporation : argues a designer. S7 

possibly work of second day 86 

Scriptural representations of 83 

vastness of 86 

Evolution : does not account for weight 

of universe 39 

hypothesis of. . , 12?, 160 

implies involution 39 

parable of 133 

" Ex nihilo nihil fit " 39 

Excelsior : summons of the sky 98 

Figurations ; from forma, tclic 303 



PAGE 

Firmament : meaning of. 86 

Form and Figure : discriminated 303 

Forests : plea in behalf of. 128 

Fourth Commandment : in its letter, 

Jewish 256 

Franconia Profile 174 

Fructification : parable of 135 

Future Life : a present inspiration 291 

Genesis of Things : a fascinating prob- 
lem 13 

Geology: confirms Mosaic record.. 102,168 

rests on story of emergent lands. . . . 102 

Geometry : three, the basis of SOB 

Germination : parable of. 132 

" God-said : " an anthropomorphism .... 65 

of Moses, the Logos of John 65 

God : cannot contradict Himself 15, 91 

is light 72 

Goethe : dying exclamation of. 82 

question of plagiarism 318 

Golden age : the true 220 

Greatness does not depend on bulk 143 

Heaven : a locality as well as a character 287 

etymology of 92 

Heavens, the new 286 

elementally identical with present . . . 287 
phenomenally different from present. 287 

Identity: consists in form, not figure . . . 3')5 

Image of God : defaced, not effaced 185 

meaning of. 179 

Imagcship divine : man's discretive pe- 
culiarity 189 

Imageship : meaning of 1 79 

restored in Christ 186 

the basis of triumph 196 

the die of race-unity 195 

Immortahty : birth of 214 

Inbreathing, God's : meaning of. 183 

Incarnation : God's obscuration and rev- 
elation 77 

Indians : problem of. 204 

Individuality : birth of. 106 

secret of character 109 

sense of, a growth 108 

Individualization : purpose of IIT 

Industry : birth of 203 

condition of civilization 204 



INDSX OF TOPICS. 



331 



PAGE 

Inspiration : not omniscience 142 

Instinct and reason : relative terms 164 

Intermaxillary bone: Goethe's discovery 

of ^^^^. 317 

Karens : tradition of man's origin 1S7 

Labor, dignity of: meaning of phrcsc. . . 206 

Lands : distribution of, beneficent 103 

emergence of. 100 

moral meaning of distribution 1 05 

Language : birth of 20T 

man's most wonderful faculty 207 

origin of, a fascinating problem 20S 

the bridge between man and man . . . 209 

tremendous power of 209 

weds thought and thought in sphere 

of matter 208 

Latitude and longitude : method of cal- 
culating 146 

Leaf: the archetypal 324 

Life : a duel of ego and non-ego 117 

begins chaotically 59 

Guyot's definition of. 107 

origin of 55, 120 

Light : blessedness of 68 

essence of, unknown 73 

latent in character 75 

moral meaning of 72 

possibly intermediate between spirit 

and matter 74 

symbol of Church 75 

the first, chemical 67 

the symbol of God 72 

LogosofJohn: the "God-said" of Moses 66 

Luminaries : alternate day and night. . . 143 

beneficence of their arrangement. . . . 149 

emergence of. 142 

give notations of time 145 

give notations of space 146 

guides to Christ 150 

moral meaning of. 150 

Man and Woman : community of 223 

diversity of 231 

essential unity of 225 

mutually essential 233 

Man : basis of Sabbath 252 

emergence of 17S 

God's imago in secondary reflection.. 1S5 



PAGE 

Man : God's inbreathing 187 

greater than Sabbath 259 

has in himself Forbidden Tree 217 

his authority over Nature 190 

j his formal superiority to woman 225 

his incomparable dignity 194, 806 

his nature a Cooperative Society 110 

needs Sabbath for religious nature. . . 255 

needs Sabbath for secular nature 252 

not King, but Viceroy 102 

not naturally immortal 216 

the image of Christ 183 

three, the basis of 308 

Mankind : figuration from Christ, the 

Archetypal Form 193 

I meaning of 196 

Marriage : a Divine institution 234 

, Marriage - ceremony : should be reli- 
I gious. 2S5 

Marriage : earthly, a type of heavenly . . 236 

indissoluble 235 

I takes precedence of every other hu- 
man relation 285 

the a^gis of our homes 235 

Matter : not inherently evil 286 

original condition of 49 

our training-school for eternity 287 

unlikely to be annihilated 288 

Mechanics : three, the basis of 310 

Monogamy : the law of the two Edens. . 240 

Morphology : animal 815 

vegetable 312 

Mos.aic Code : its care for animals 167 

Mosaic Kecord : antiquity of 9 

chief point of modern assault 14 

grandeur of 13 

language of i)henomenal 19 

moral meaning cf 24 

Moses not necessarily the author 9 

twofold 176 

Natural Selection : Christianity reverses 

doctrine of 117 

Nature : a Bible 14 

and Scripture correspondent 24 

knowledge of, progressive 16 

Nebular Hypothesis : confirms Mosaic 

Record 50, 67, 90 

New Heavens and Earth 286 f^q, 

a renovation, not absolute creation. . . 283 



332 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



PAGE 

New Heavens and Earth antedate the 

present in Divine purpose 291 

elementally identical with present... 237 
identical with pfesent in form, differ- 
ent in figure 305 

phenomenally different from pres- 
ent... 2S9 

the true Holy Land 292 

l^ouns : the first words 208 

Ocean : primeval, the basis of Geology. . 102 

Oceans : economy of 103 

Oken : question of plagiarism 318 

Order : birth of 47 

" Our Image " (Gen. i. 23) : the imperial , 

plural 184 

Oxygen : the world-builder, possibly the 

world-destroyer 285 

Talingenesis 172, 288 sq. 

the cheer of the Apostolic Age 296 

the secret of holy hving 298 

the secret of PauFs career 297 

Paradise : capacity of, latent in man 218 

Parallelisms of Creative Week 138 

Plants : emblematic of man 130 

emergence of. 119 

frequent Scriptural allusions to 132 

moral meaning 130 

Moses's account of pictorial 122 

purpose of . . 127 

Poet : definition of 170 

Probation : a possible blessing 217 

birth of 216 

necessary to character 217 

Eace-Unity : imageship the die of 195 

Eainfall : annual quantity of 86 

Eeason and Instinct : relative terms — 164 

Eeconstruction : the coming 285 

Eegeneration : necessity of 134 

of Nature 288 

Eesurrection-body : atomically identical 
with present, but molecularly dif- 
ferent 290 

identical with present in form, but 

different in figure 305 

Eesting : the Creator's 246 

Eestitution 172, 220, 285 

Eevelation : relations, of to Science 14 



PAGE 

Sabbath : a means, not an end 260 

change of dayatremendous revolution 270 

changed from seventh day to first. . . 269 

Christ's doctrine of 251 

Jewish, classed by Paul with ceremo- 
nial observances 258 

legislation, proper sphere of 254 

made for man 253 

objections to author's view 267 

question, how to meet 2t9 

the change of day a testimony to 

Christ's resurrection 271 

detent of life's machinery 253 

the three great 251 

the true method of keeping 2G4 

Satisfaction : the coming 198 

Science and Eehgion : coming bridal of. 151 

Science : relations of, to Eevelation 14 

confirms coming Dissolution 2S2 

ministry of. 91 

Scripture and Nature correspondent .... 24 

Scripture : knowledge of progressive. . . 17 

Seven : the Scriptural number 248 

Seventh day : sanctified 250 

Shechinah 74 

"man the true" 189 

Sky : ancient conception of. 84 

emergence of 85 

Scriptural representations of £4 

suggests human aspirations and Di- 
vine Perfections 92 

Sleep : necessity of 14 

Society : three, the basis of 310 

Sociology : two extremes of 112 

an Eden to be tilled 218 

Soul common to animals and men 164 

Species : an abstract term 123 

Specialization : characteristic of develop- 
ment 103 

Spirit : man's discretive peculiarity 189 

Spirit of God ; meaning of phrase 52 

organizer of chaos 51 

organizer of humanity 60 

Survival of the Fittest : Christianity re- 
verses doctrine of 117 

Third Day : providential character of. . . 129 

Three : an archetypal number 308 

Time : the great expositor 18 

Traditions ; origin of prehistoric 10 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



333 



PAGE 

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: 

meaning of 216 

Tree of Life : meaning of 215 

Trees : significance of 214 

Triads of Creative Week .TTT^ 188 

Triumpli : imageship the basis of. 196 

Triumphal entry : the true 197 

Trusteeship ; birth of 205 

Truth: indefinitely expansible 91 

Unity and unit discriminated 106, 232 

effectiveness of 109 

of race, imageship the secret of 195 

Universe : a whispering gallery 211 

origin of, a fundamental question 82 

origin of, a legitimate question 39 

practically infinite 37 

Yegctable Morphology 312 

Vertebra: the archetypal 320 

Visions: God's ancient method of in- 
struction 21 



PAGE 

Weight of the universe 85 

the true measure of matter 84 

Woman and Man : community of 228 

diversity of 231 

essential unity of 225 

Woman : emergence of 223 

essential equality with man 227 

formal inferiority to man 225 

mane's second self. 228 

Woman's Eights : false views of. . . . 227, 233 

Woman Suffrage : question of 230 

Woman: the story of, a Divine para- 
ble 222 

Words : immortality of 211 

nouns the fii-st 208 

our judges 2U9 

revealers of character. 212 

the manes of past centuries 208 

Work : man's normal condition 208 

the cure of pauperism 204 

Worship of Light 70 



INDEX OF SCEIPTUEES. 



PAGE 

Genesis i. 1 32 

Genesis i. 2 47, 68 

Genesis i. 3-5 65 

Genesis i. 6-8 S3 

Genesis 1. 9, 10 100 

Genesis 1. 11-13 119 

Genesis i. 14-19 138 

Genesis i. 20 165 

Genesis i. 24 165 

Genesis i. 26, 27 176 

Genesis 1. 26-31 177 

Genesis i. 28 204 

Genesis ii. 1-3 245 

Genesis ii. 5-22 178 

Genesis ii. 7 52, 165, 176 

Genesis ii. 8-20 199 

Genesis ii. 16, 17 216 

Genesis ii. 18-25 222 

Genesis ii. 19, 20 190, 209 

Genesis iii. 8 52 

Genesis iii. 19 188 

Genesis iii. 22-24 216 

Genesis ix. 6 185 

Genesis xiii. 14-17 292 

Exodus iii. 13-15 216 

Exodus xiv. 21 52 

Exodus XV. 8 52 

Exodus XX. 1, 2 257 

Exodus XX. 8-11 250 

Exodus XX. 12 257 

Exodus xxiii. 19 167 

Exodus xxxi. 12-17 257 

Leviticus xxii. 28 167 

Deuteronomy xxii. 6, 7 167 

Deuteronomy xxv. 4 167 



PACE 

Job xxvi. 13 52 

Job xxxi. 26-28 70 

Job xxxii. 8. 53 

Job xxxiil. 4 : 56, 58 

Job xxxviii. 19, 20 73 

Job xxxviii. 31-33 94 

Psalm viii. 5 194 

Psalm viii. 6-9 191 

Psalm xvii. 15 198 

Psalm xix. 1-4 147 

Psalm xxiv. 7-10 197 

Psalm xxxiii. 6 53 

Psalm xxxvi. 9 18 

Psalm xlv 233 

Psalm xlvii. 11 79 

Psalm Ixviii. 32-34 C4 

Psalm xc. 1-4 71 

Psalm xci. 1 78 

Psalm xcii. 12-14 136 

Psalm civ. 1,2 74 

Psalm civ, 29, 30 53 

Psalm cxviii. 9 2^4 

Psalm cxxvii. 2 224 

Psalm cxxxiii. 1 107 

Psalm cxxxlx. 14-16 50 

Psalm cxxxix. 15, 16 301 

Proverbs iv. 18 79 

Proverbs x. 11 210 

Proverbs xv. 4 210 

Proverbs xvi. 24 210 

Proverbs xxv. 11 210 

Proverbs xxvi. 18, 19 210 

Canticles ii. 8-13 243 

Canticles iv. 12-10 220 



INDEX OF SCPJPTURES. 



335 



PAGE 

Isftiah xi. G-9 ITS 

Isaiah xxxi. 1 254 

Isaiah XXXV. 1 218 

Isaiah xl. 5 197 

Isaiah li. 3 77:77. 219 

Isaiah Iviii. 6, 7 264 

Isaiah Ixii. 4 236 

Isaiah Ix v. 17 289 

Jeremiah xxxi. 35 151 

Jeremiah xxxiii. 20-26 151 

Ezekielxx. 12-20 257 

Ezekiel xxxvii. 1-10 57 

Ezekiel xli. 7 93 

Hosea vi. 6 261 

Zechariah iv. 6 255 

Malachi iv. 2 69 

Matthew v. 5 292 

Matthew vi. 9 96 

Matthew xii. 1-S 231 

Matthew xii. 9-14 262 

Matthew xii. 36, 37 212 

Matthew xii. 34-40 118 

Matthew xiii. 43 76 

Matthew xix. 3-6 234 

Matthew xix. 23 2S8 

Matthew xx. 16 184 

Matthew xxi. 1-10 197 

Matthew x.xi. 33-43 193 

Matthew xxii. 29 291 

Matthew xxv. 1-10 240 

Matthew xxv. 10-12 243 

Matthew xxv. 14-30 193 

Matthew xxvi. 73 214 

Mark ii. 27, 23 252 

Mark iv. 2G-29 27. 62 

Mark vii. 32-35 212 

Luke i. 85 181 

Luke iii. 83 195 

Luke vi. 44 127 

Luke viii. 54, 55 53 

Luke X. 7 205 

Luke xi. 2 27 

Luke xiii. 10-17 • 262 

Luke xiii. 14 266 



PAGE 

Luke xiv. 1-6 262 

Luke XX. 9-16 193 

Johni.l 66 

Johni. 9 78 

John i. 51 97 

John iii. 6, 7 134 

John iii. 8 53 

John iv. 35-38 806 

John v. 1-1 8 263 

John V , 17 245, 251 

John vi. 32-58 26 

John vii. 21-24 2C3 

John X. 16 240 

John xiv. 2 116 

John xiv. 8-10 183 

John XV. 1-10 135 

John XV. 5 240 

John xviii. 37 188 

John xix. 80 53, 247 

John XX. 22 53 

Acts ii. 2-4 5} 

Acts iii. 21 186, 220 

Acts xxii. 11 'ii 

Romans v. 12-21 221 

Komans viii. 19-23 169 

Romans viii. 21 76 

Romans viii. 29 • 187 

Romans xi. 16-24 135 

Romans xii. 2 SC4 

Romans xii. 4, 5 240 

Romans xii. 6-8 110 

Romans xiv. 4 255 

Romans xiv. 5 258 

Romans xiv. 13 26? 

1 Corinthians vi. 3 300 

1 Corinthians vi. 12 266 

1 Corinthians vi. 19 ISO 

1 Corinthians xi. 8, 9 225 

1 Corinthians xi. 11, 12 233 

1 Corinthians xii. 4-11 115 

1 Corinthians xii. 12-27 25 

1 Corinthians xii. 14-26 114 

1 Corinthians xiii. 9-11 239 

1 Corinthians xiii. 13 219 

1 Corinthians xiv 209 

1 Corinthians xv. 37-42 . . . . ; 290 

1 Corinthians .\v. 45 25 



336 



INDEX OF SCRIPTUEES. 



PAGE 

2 Corinthians iii. 18 198 

2 Corinthians iv. 6 ; 78 

2 Corinthians v. 1-4 286 

2 Corinthians xi. 2, 3 236, 239 

Galatians iii. 28 229 

Galatians iv. 1-7 267 

Galatians V, 22, 23 136 

Galatians vi. 7 134 

Ephesians ii. 20-22 240 

Ephesians iv. 13 239 

Ephesians iv. 22-24 187 

Ephesians iv. 25 112 

Ephesians v. 25-43 25, 237 

Philippians ii. 5-S 305 

Philippians iii. 21 76 

Philippians iii. 21 305 

Colossians 1. 15 194 

Colossians i. 16, 17 67 

Colossians ii. 9 182 

Colossians ii, 9, 10 61 

Colossians ii. 16, 17 258, 267 

Colossians iii. 9, 10 187 



1 Thessalonians v. 1-5 



285 



2 Thessalonians ii. 8 53 

2 Thessalonians iii. 10 205 

1 Timothy ii. 13 225 

1 Timothy v. 18 167 



PA6B 

1 Timothy vi. 15 77 

1 Timothy vi. 16 216 

Hebrews i. 3 77 

Hebrews Iv 251 

Hebrews xi. 3 41 

Hebrews xi. 3 322 

James iii. 2-10 ' 210 

James iii. 9 183 

1 Peter ii. 13 113 

2 Peter i. 5-7 136 

2 Peter iii. 3-7 282 

2 Peter iii. 5 102 

2 Peter ii". 10-13 273, 305 

1 John i. 5 72 

1 John iii. 2 75 

1 John iii. 3 298 

1 John iii. 4 217 

Eevelation i. 6 197 

Eevelation iii. 14 194 

Eevelation iii. 20 242 

Eevelation iv 327 

Eevelation iv. 8 175 

Eevelation xii. 16 196 

Eevelation XV. 23 298 

Eevelation xix. 6-9 241 

Eevelation xxi. 1 289 

Eevelation xxi, 23 82 

Eevelation xxii. 5 144 



IlfDEX OF AUTHOES. 



PAGE 

Adams, Mrs. : Aspiration 98 

Agassiz : Divine Premeditation 125 

Immortality of Animals 168 

Aristotle : Archetypal Forms 322 

Augustine : Origin of Churcli 238 

Origin of Universe 44 

Scripture inexhaustible 28 

Bacon : Archet3T)al Forms 822 

Athiism 44 

The Writer's Prayer {see Preface) 

Berkeley, Bishop : Course of Empire. . . 200 
Bernard of Cluny : The Celestial Country 293 

Bonar : Song of the Bride 242 

Bowring, Sir J.: Star of Bethlehem 154 

Browne, Sir Thomas : His Source of Di- 
vinity 14 

Buhver : Woman's Eoyalty 228 

Butler, Bishop : Knowledge of Scripture 

progressive 17 

Carlyle : The Tree Igdrasil 214 

Chrysostom : The True Shechinah 189 

Coleridge : Man's Culmination Ill 

Plea for Animals 168 

Copernicus : Ilis Epitaph 31 

Cowper : Plea for Animals 168 

Cutting : Poem on Science 126 

Dana: Basement Laws true for all 

Worlds 310 

Draper : Beneficence of Sabbath 252 

Dryden : St. Cecilia's Day 811 

Dscheladeddin : Aspiration 98 

Eckermann : Citation from Diary 325 

Emerson: Concords of Space and Time. 143 

15 



PAGE 

Fiiber : Groans of Creation 170 

Galen : His Life a Hymn 31 

Goethe : Theory of Plants 318 

Guyot : Physical Geography 105 

Definition of Life 107 

Hehvysse : Eeligious Liberty 255 

Herbert : Dignity of Toil 206 

Jesus, Son of Sirach : All Things double 23 

Keble : " Two Worlds are Ours " 29 

Kepler: Conclusion of "Harmony of 
Worlds" 31 

Lewes : Question of Plagiarism 31 S 

Unity of Nature 317 

Linnaeus : Theory of Plants 312 

Longfellow : Immortality of Words 212 

Lesson of Flowers 137 

Substance and Shadow 29 

Longinus : (Genesis i. 3) 67 

Macaulay : Tribute to Sabbath 253 

Milton : Apostrophe to Light 74 

Chacs 49 

Nature a Phonograph 211 

Prayer for Parousia 175 

Hest for Solitude 255 

Spirit of God 59 

Newcomb : The Coming Dissolution 284 

Ovid: Chaos 50 

Plato : Archetypal Forms 822 

Plotinus : His Thanksgiving 286 



338 



INDEX OF AUTHORS, 



PAGE 

Scott, Sir W. : Shecbinah. 74 

Shakespeare : Castigating Eascals 227 

Growth of Soul.. . , 133 

Hamlet's Sky 97 

Harmony of Worlds 153 

Ministry of Sleep 144 

Plea for the Jew 165 

Eidiculousness of Tyranny 226 

The Coming Dissolution 284 

The Witnessing Forest. 213 

Undreamed Truths 166 

Shelley : Skylark ". 93 

Smith, Horace : Ministry of Flowers 219 

Spenser : Archetypal Forms 307 

Tennyson : Birth of Individuality 108 

Birth of Time 72 



PAGE 

Tennyson: " Flower in the crannied wall" 131 

Future of Creation 171 

Glory of Distance Ill 

God our Light 153 

Growth of Light 79 

Peace of Golden Year , 80 

The Bolted Door 243 

The Perfect Pair. 233 

Yision of the Future 192 

Tyndall : Origin of Universe 42 

Vaughan : Blessedness of Sabbath 256 

Virgil ; *' Felix qui potuit," etc 13 

Watts : The Blessed Hope 296 

Wolff: Theory of Plants 812 

Wordsworth ; Origin of Soul 194 



THE END, 



RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS, 



Studies in the_-Creative Week. 

By Rev. George D. Boardman, D. D. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

Studies in the Model Prayer. 

By Rev. George D. Boardman, D. D. 12rao, Cloth. Price, 
$i.25. 

Epiphanies of the Risen Lord. 

By Rev. George D. Boardman, D. D. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. 
Price, $1.25. 

The Life and Words of Christ. 

By Cunningham Geikie, D. D. With Twelve Engravings on Steel. 
In 2 vols. Price, $8.00. 

The Historical Poetry of the Ancient 
Hebrews. 

Translated and critically examined by Michael Heilprin, Vol. I. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.00. 

History of Opinions on the Scriptural 
Doctrine of Retribution. 

By Edward Beecher, D. D., author of " The Conflict of Ages." 
12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

Twelve Lectures to Young Men, 

On Various Important Subjects. By Henry Ward Beecher, Re- 
vised edition. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 

The Comprehensive Church; 

Or, Christian Unity and Ecclesiastical Union in the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. By the Right Rev. Thomas H. Vail, D. D., 
LL. D., Bishop of Kansas. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

The Book of Job: 

Essays, and a Metrical Paraphrase. By Rossiter W. Raymond, 
Ph. D. With an Introductory Note by the Rev. T. J. Conant, 
D. D. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 



D. APPLETON & CO., Publishebs, 1, 3, «fc 5 Bond Street, N. Y. 



Critical, Explanatory, and Practical Notes 

ON THE 

OLD AID lEW TESTAIEIT. 

Designed for the Use of Pastors and People. 
By HENRY COWLES, D. D. 



IN 12MO VOLUMES, UNIFORMLY BOUND. 



The Shorter Epistles ; viz. : Of Paul to the Galatians ; Ephesians ; 

Philippians ; Colossians ; Thessalonians ; Timothy ; Titus and PhilC' 

mon ; also, Of James, Petei', and Jude. 1 vol. Cloth. 
The Epistle to the Hebrews. 1 vol. Cloth, $1.50. 
The Gospel and Epistles of John. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.00. 
Revelation of St. John. 1 vol. Cloth, $1.50. 
The Minor Prophets. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.00. 
Ezekiel and Daniel. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.25. 
Isaiah. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.25. 

Jeremiah and his Lamentations. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.00. 
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. 1 vol. 

Cloth, $2.00. 
Psalms. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.25. 
The Pentateuch, in its Progressive Revelations of God to Men. 1 

vol. Cloth, $2.00. 
Hebrew History. From the Death of Moses to the Close of the 

Scripture Narrative. 1 vol. Cloth, $2.00. 
The Book of Job. 1 vol. Cloth, $1.50. 



For sale by all booksellers. Any volume sent by mail, post-paid, to any ad^ 
dress in the United States on receipt of price. 



D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York. 



Studies i^s" the Ceeatiye Week. 

By Rev. GEORGE D. BOARDMAN. D. D. 
1 vol., lOmo. Cloth, $1.25. 



The Lectures, fourteen in number, embrace the following topics : 1. Lntrodttction ; 
2. Genesis of tue Universe; 8. Of Order; 4. Of Light; 5. Of the Sky; 6. Of 
THE Lands ; 7. Of Plants ; 8. Of the Luminaries ; 9. Of Animals ; 10. Of Man ; 
11. Of Eden; 12. Of Woman; 13. Of the Sabbath; 14. Palingenesis. 

"We see in the Lectures more than the sensation of Ihe hour. Theywill 
have a marked effect iu defining the posii ion of tlie heliever of to-day, in certifying 
both to disciple and to skeptic just what is to be held against all attack; and the 
statement of the case will be in many cases the strongest argument. They 
will tend to broaden the minds of believers, and to lift thom above the letter to 
the plane of the spirit. They will show that truth and religion are capable of 
being defended without violence, without denunciation, without misrepresen- 
tation, without the impu^rning of motive^.''^— National Baptist. 

"Revelation and Science can not really conflict, because 'truth can not be 
contrary to truth ; ' but so persistent have been the attacks of scientists on time- 
honored orthodoxy, that the believer in Revelation has long demanded an ex- 
haustive work on the first chapter of Genesis. In response to this widespread 
feeling,, the Rev. George Dana Board man, D. D., the learned pastor of tlie First 
Baptist C;hurch, Philadelphia, was requested to deliver a course of lectures cov- 
ering ttiis debatable ground." 



HISTORY OF OPINIONS 



Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution. 

By EDWARD BEECHER, D. D., 

Author of " The Conflict of Ages." 

1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 



The momentous qnestion of future retribution is here historically discussed 
with an earnestness and deliberation due to its transcendent importance. The 
main interest of the inq^uiry naturally centers in the doom of the wicked. Will 
it be annihilation ? ultimate restoration to holiness and happiness ? endless 
punishment? or is it out of our power to decide which of these views is the 
truth? The discussion is intensified by being narrowed to the mcaninir of a 
single word, aionios. The opinion? of those to whom Christ spoke, and how 
they understood him, are vital questions in the argument; and, to solve them, 
the opinions and modes of speech of preceding aires must be attentively wei<>hcd, 
for each age is known to have molded the opinions and use of words of its 
successor. Hence, Dr. Bcecher has I'ound himself compelled to "trace the de- 
velopment of thought and language from the outset to the days of Christ, then 
to inqnire into the import of his words, in the liirht of all preceding ages : and, 
lastly, to trace the development of opinion downward through the Christian 
ages." 

D. APrL'!:TON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, N. Y. 



STUDIES 



MODEL PRAYER. 

By GEORGE D. BOARDMAN, D. D., 

Author of "The Ckeative "Week." 



1 vol., 12nio. Cloth. . . . Price, $1.25. 



"Dr. Boardman has brought to his task that wide and accurate and tasteful learn- 
ing for which he is distinguished, and that felicitous power of using and making lan- 
guage which imparts to his writings a fascination as rare as it is exquisite. He has 
brought to his task more than this ; the power of analysis by which he has penetrated 
the deeper and more hidden meaning of the prayer, 'so that the book becomes in a 
strong sense a book of devotion. It is not possible that it should not be widely read, 
and wherever read it will bring comfort, help, and dehght." — N. T. Examiner and 
Vhronide. 

" An earnest, devout book, excellently written and truly edifying.'*— iV. Y. Evening 
Express. 

"This prayer, short as it is. contains such an inexhaustible number of suggestions 
that our author, in his well- written work, does not hope to have nearly fathomed the 
subject. There are many paragraphs that would have a place here were it not for lack 
of space. The book is adapted equally to the pulpit-orator and the Christian citizen." 
— Chicago Tribune. 

" The lectures are lucid in style, devotional in spirit, and closely practicaf to the 
daily life." — Hartfoi d Courunt. 

"A most scholarly, enthusiastic, and interesting consideration of the deep and won- 
derful meaning condensed into the simple and brief sentences of the Lord's Prayer." — 
Boston Journal of Commerce. 

"While the book is enriched with much that is original in conception and in the 
development of meaning, there is no trace of forced analogy or strained application. 
The book is as charming for its naturalness as it will be salutatory in its use." — CharleS' 
ton News and Courier. 

"The book is an exhaustive treatise upon its fruitful theme; few will gainsay the 
author's profound study of his subject or question the sincerity of his views. The 
chapter on temptation is one of the most original and striking interpretations of this 
line of the prayer that has been presented. The book is one that will have more than 
a passing interest." — N. T. Herald. 



D. APPLETON & CO., Publishees, 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., N. Y. 



"A VOLUME OF PECULIAR INTEREST TO RELIGIOUS READERS." — BoSton 

Evening Transcript. 



EPIPHANIES 



THE RISEN LORD, 

By GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D. D., 

Author of " The Creative Week," and " Studies in the Model Prayer." 



1 vol., 12mo. Cloth Price, $1.25. 



"Tn arransin^ the 'Epiphanies of the Eisen Lord,' the author is aware that 
there are difficulties in harmonizing the accounts of them as given by the Evan- 
gelists. Nor is it strange that there should be these difficulties. In the first 
place, Christ's risen body was an absolutely unique body, endowed with super- 
natural properties, and as such capable of moving with supernatural celerity, 
and therefore might have seemed to appear in different places at practically the 
same moment. Secondly, it was a period of intense excitement among the dis- 
ciples; they had suddenly and most unexpectedly lost their beloved Master: so 
absolutely were all their hopes crushed, that the thought did not occur to them 
that they would ever see Him again : accordingly, His sudden reappearance was 
to them a total, bewildering surprise: no wonder that under such circumstances 
absolute harmony of separate accounts would have been almost impossible." — 
Extract from Preface. 

"The importance of the subject, and its scholarly, dispassionate, yet reverent 
and Christian treatment should recommend it strouj^ly to the notice of all evan- 
gelical believers."— £osto?i Journal of Commerce. 

"The author has brought to the study of the epiphanies that profound knowl- 
edge of the sacred writings and clear and felicitous style that make his works so 
popular. The first and second chapters relate to the entombment and the resur. 
rection. Then the epiphanies are discussed in their order: 1. To Mary Mag. 
dalene ; 2. To the other Women ; .3. To the Two ; 4. To the Ten ; 5. To Thomas ; 
6. The Epiphany in the Galil&an Mountain ; 7. To the Seven ; 8. The Ascension ; 
9. The Forty Days ; 10. To Saul of Tarsus. It is a book which may be profitably 
read.''— Baltimore Gazette. 



For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, to any address in the 
United States, on receipt of price. 



D. APPLETON & 00., 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., New York, 



D. APPLETON & CO;S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 



Memoirs of Madame de I\emusat. 

1802-1808. With a Preface and Notes by her grandson, Paul de 

Remus A.T, Senator. Translated from the French by Mrs. Cashel 

HoEY and John Lillie. 8vo, paper. In throe volumes. Volume 

I. now ready. Price, 50 cents. 

" It would be easy to multiply quotations from this interesting book, wMcli no one 

will take up without reading greedily to the end; but enough has been said to show 

its importance as illustrating the character and the policy of the most remarkable 

man of modern times, for appreciating which Madame de liemusat is likely to remain 

one of the principal authorities." — London Athenceum. 

II. 

The Hoir\es of Aii\erica. 

With 103 Illustrations on Wood. Edited by Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, 

author of " The History of the City of New York." Quarto. In 

cloth, extra gilt, price, $6.00; also in full morocco, price, $12.00. 

" A.merie9ns have reason to be proud of this performance, and ' The Homes of 

America ' is entitled to sincere respect and a most cordial reception.''~^osi;o;i Aaver- 

tiser. 

III. 

Landscape ii\ Americai\ Poetry. 

Illustrated from Original Drawings by J. Appleton Brown. De- 
scriptive Text by Lucy Larcom. Large 8vo. Price in cloth, extra 
gilt, $4.00 ; in full morocco, $8.00. 
"This is a beautiful volume, one of the most exquisite, from cover to cover, that 
have been prepared for the holidays, and not only adapted to a single holiday season, 
but fit in itself to make perpetual holiday for those who shall be fortunate enough to 
possess it." — Boston, Courier. 

lY. 
COMPLETE IN THREE MAGNIFICENT VOLUMES. 

Picturesque Europe- 

With 63 Exquisite Steel Plates, and nearly 1 ,000 Original Illustra- 
tions on Wood. Prom Original Drawings made expressly for this 
work by Bxrket Poster, Harry Fenn, J. D. Woodward, P. Skelton, 
S. Read, W. H. Boot, and others. Edited by Bayard Taylor. 
" PrcTURESQXTE EtTEOPE " is sold Only by subscription, and is pubhshed in 60 parts, 
royal quarto, at 50 cents each, and in three volumes, bound in full or half morocco. 
Price, m half morocco, $48.00; full morocco, $54.00; morocco, extra gilt, $57.00. 

" With three completed quarto volumes lying around us, we survey the successive 
pages and engravings with fresh wonder and delight, as each picture, done with the 
keenest skill and most delicate taste of the artist, reproduces before the eye some 
familiar scene, and all the pleasing associations of other years and lands come" back to 
the mind. From personal observation we can certify to the accurate fidelity of the 
artist, while the letter-press description embodies the fullest and most careful accounts 
of whatever the pencil has drawn. To the untraveled but cultured mind these vol- 
umes are a perpetual feast. Each picture is a finished work of art, on steel or on wood. 
Not one is lightly done, but all are in the best manner of the artists. Avhose reputation 
is enhanced by the effort made to illustrate this magnificent pictorial work." — Sew 
York Obsej'ver. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New Ycrls:. 



D. APPLET ON & CO:S RECENT PUBLICATIONS.-^CmtimKd.) 



Solar Light and Heat : 



THE SOURCE AND THE SUPPLY, Gravitation: with Explana- 
tions of Planetary andHltfolecular Forces. By Zachariau Allen, 
LL. D. With niustrations. 1 vol., 8vo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 



VI. 



Macaulay's Essays. 



ESSAYS CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. By Lord Macau- 
lay. In two vols., 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.50. 

This is a remarkably cheap edition of Macaulay's Essays. It is printed in good 
style, and handsomely bound. 

VII. 

A Class-Book History of England. 

Illustrated with numerous Woodcuts and Historical Maps. Com- 
piled for Pupils preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge Local Ex- 
aminations, and lor the Higher Classes of Elementary Schools. By 
the Rev. David Morris, Classical Master in Liverpool College. First 
American from fifteenth English edition. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. 
Price, $1.25. 

VIII. 

The Englislx Language, 

AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. By J. H. Gilmore, A. M., Pro- 
fessor of Logic, Rhetoric, and English, in the University of Roch- 
ester. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, 60 cents. 

IX. 
Dr. RICHARDSON'S 



"Ministry of Healtl\." 



A Ministry of Health, and other Addresses. By Benjamin Ward 
Richardson, author of "Diseases of Modern Life." 1 vol., 12mo. 
Cloth. Price, $1.50. 

X. 



Harvey's Tl\erapeutics. 



First Lines of Therapeutics, as based on the Modes and the Pro- 
cesses of Healing, as occurring spontaneously in Disease, etc., etc. 
By Alexander Harvet, M. D., Professor of Materia Medica in the 
University of Aberdeen. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 



For sale by all booksellers; or any work sent, prepaid, to any address in the United 
States, on receipt of the price. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. 



CLASSICAL WRITERS 

Edited by JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 



IGnio, Flexible cloth. - - - Trice, GO cents. 

Under the above title, Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. are issuing a series 
of small volumes upon some of the principal classical and English writers, 
whose works form subjects of study in our colleges, or which are read by 
the general public, concerned in classical and English literature for its 
own sake. As the object of the series is educational, care is taken to 
impart information in a systematic and thorough way, while an intelligent 
interest in the writers and their works is sought to be aroused by a clear 
and attractive style of treatment. Classical authors especially have too 
long been regarded as mere instruments for teaching pupils the principles 
of grammar and language, while the personality of the men themselves 
and the circumstances under which they wrote have been kept in the 
background. Against such an irrational and one-sided method of educa- 
tion the present series is a protest. 

It is a principle of the series that, by careful selection ot authors, the 
best scholars in each department shall have the opportunity of speaking 
directly to students and readers, each on the subject which he has made 
his own. 

The following volumes are in preparation : 

MIIiTON Rev. Stopford Brooke. {Ready. 

BACON Rev. Dr. Abbott. 

SPENSER Professor J. W. Hales. 

CHAUCER F. J. Fumivall. 

HERODOTUS .Professor Bryce. 

SOPHOCIiES Professor Lewis Campbell. 

DEMOSTHENES S. H. Butcher, M. A. 

EURIPIDES.. : Professor Mahaffy. [Eeady. 

"VTRGUL Professor Nettleship. 

HORACE T. H. Ward, M. A. 

CICERO Professor A. S. Wilkins. 

LIVY W. W. Capes, M. A. 

Other volumes to follow. 

D. APPLETON & CO., New York. 



Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia 

AND 

REGISTER OF IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1878. 

New Series, Vol. III. Whole Series, Vol. XVIII. 



Uniform in Size^ Styles of Binding, and Price, with the " American Cyclopcedia. 



The Annual Cyclopaedia of 1S78 is an unusually valuable book; it gives the his- 
tory of the world during the year, and is, in fact, an exhaustive annual register, being 
the only publication of the kind in this country. The contents cover political, civil, mili- 
tary, and social affairs ; public documents ; biography, statistics, commerce, finance, 
literature, science, agriculture, engineering enterprises, geographical discoveries, inven- 
tions, education, and religion. Each country has an article which includes the history 
of the year; each State of the Union is separately noticed, and each Department of 
the Federal Government 

Special record is made of the proceedings of Congress, including debates on all the 
important reports and resolutions, the principal speeches, the yeas and nays on leading 
issues, and a list of the members of both Houses. Abstracts of the most important 
legal decisions in the several States are published. 

Upon all cardinal topics, articles have been procured from the most competent 
authorities obtainable (see, for example, the timely article upon Yellow Fever, from 
the pen of a citizen of New Orleans). A complete account of the Literature and 
Literary Progress of the year at home and abroad has been contributed by Professor 
C. E. Smith, of Boston. Mr. F. Huntington, of New York, gives a full narrative of 
Geographical Discovery. An elaborate record of the Astronomical Phenomena 
AND Progress is made by Professor Daniel Kiekwoop, of the University of Indiana. 
Copious descriptions of the Electric Light and of recent developments in Chemistry 
are given by Dr. W. J. Youmans, Associate Editor of " The Popular Science Monthly.'' 
Professor Clevland Abbe, of the United States Signal Service, contributes an article 
on Meteorology. A comprehensive and accurate history and description of the United 
States Life-saving Service, copiously illustrated, has been furnished by the Assist- 
ant General Superintendent of the establishment, Mr. "W. D. O'Connor. 

The volume is illustrated with numerous cuts of important cities and buildings in 
all parts of the world ; and also steel portraits of Queen Victoria, Professor Joseph 
HiiNRY, and "William Ccllen Bryant, 

PRICE PER VOLUME. 
Cloth, $5.00; Sheep, $6.00; Half Turkey, $7.00; Half Russia, $8.00. 
For sale by Subscriplion only. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 

1, 3, «& 5 Bond Street, New York. 



AppLETOisrs' Periodicals. 



Appletons' Journal : 



A Magazine of General Literature. Subscription, $3.00 per annum ; single copy 
25 cents. The volumes begin January and July of each year. 

The Art Journal : 

An International Gallery of Engravings by Distinguished Artists of Europe and 
America. With Illustrated Papers in the various branches of Art. Each vol- 
Time contains the monthly numbers for one year. Subscription, $9.00. 

Th*e Popular Science Monthly: 

Conducted by E. L. and "W. J. Youmans. Containing instructive and inter- 
esting articles and abstracts of articles, original, selected, and illustrated, from 
the pens of the leading scientific men of different countries. Subscription, to 
begin at any time, $5.00 per annum ; single copy, 50 cents. The volumes begin 
May and November of each year. 

The North American Revie^v : 

Published Monthly. Containing articles of general public interest, it is a forum 
for their full and free discussion. It is cosmopolitan, and true to its ancient 
motto it is the organ of no sect, or party, or school. Subscription, $5.00 per 
annxun ; single copy, 50 cents. 

The Ne\v York Medical Journal : 

Edited 1t>y Fkank P. Eostee, M. D. Subscription, $4.00 per annum ; single 
copy, 40 cents. 



POSTAGE PAID. 

Appletons' Joxjrnal and The Popttlab Science, Monthly, together, $7.00 per 
annum (full price, $S.00); and Noeth American Keview, $11.50 per annum (fuU 
price, $13.00). The Poptjlae Science Monthly and New Yoek Medical Jotjenal, 
together, $8.00 per annum (full price, $9.00) ; and Noetu American Keview, $12.50 
per annum (full price, $14.00). Appletons' Journal and New Toek Medical Jour- 
nal, together, $6.25 per annum (full price, $7.00); and Noetu American Eeview 
$10.50 per annum (full price, $12.00). The Popttlab Science Monthly and Noeth 
American Keview, together, $9.00 per annum (full price, $10.00). Appletons' Jour- 
nal and North American Eeview, together, $7.00 per annum (full price, $8.00). 
New Yoek Medical Journal and North Ameeican Review, together, $8.00 per 
annund (full price, $9.00). 



J). APPLETON & CO., Pimshers, New York, 














» . 1 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 325 827 (^ 






WW 



m\ 



\\'\i:'M 



111 



M ! 






ill 



i^iii i 



i!!t 






li 






mm 






01 



m 



i 



I 






